The Unspeakables III: Token of the Elite
by aprilmarie8235
Summary: Orrin is dead, but the Elite is still out there and under new leadership. Join Thea, George, and Jax for the final story in the Unspeakables Trilogy as they take down the last of the Elite.
1. Chapter 1: Thea

Thea hesitated on the walk up to the Burrow. It was a big step, meeting George's parents, and after everything, it felt weird to be doing something as normal as this. After a second, George noticed and went back to her. Fred waited but didn't approach.

"Thea, don't worry. They're going to love you." George took her hand.

"Would you believe I'm more nervous about this than if I had to face Orrin again?" Thea smiled weakly.

George shifted to put an arm around her, pulling her closer. "Considering how much you've isolated yourself for the last eight years, no, I'm not surprised. But you already know almost half my family-Fred, Ginny, and Ron love you, and my parents will, too. Percy might not, but then Percy's mostly a git anyway." He said it lightly, in hopes of making her laugh. It worked.

A laugh bubbled up despite her best efforts. "That's an awful thing to say about your brother."

"It's true though-just ask Fred," said George. "Now, come on."

Thea let George lead her up to the door. Before he could open it though, Fred stopped him. "Maybe I should wait here," he said. "Once they see me, Mum and Dad aren't going to even notice Thea. Introduce her, and then I'll come in in a few minutes." It was true-a son having come back from the dead trumped meeting another son's girlfriend.

"I don't mind being in the background," Thea told them, but George shook his head.

"She's the one who brought you back. They'll notice her." George moved to open the door, but this time, Thea stopped him.

"I'd rather we not tell them that part."

George blinked at her. "Why not?"

Thea took his other hand in hers. "Because I want them to accept me as your girlfriend, not because I brought Fred back."

For a moment, George just looked at the two of them. "This is what you both want?"

When they nodded, George opened the door. "Mum, Dad!"

After a moment, Molly appeared. "George! How good to see you!" She gave him a hug before stepping back to take in who he had brought with him. "And I'm guessing that this is Thea?"

"It is," said George. "Thea, this is my mother Molly."

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Thea," said Molly, giving her a hug.

"It's nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Weasley," said Thea.

"Good morning, George," said a red-haired man, whom Thea presumed to be George's father as he came into the room.

After the two hugged, George drew his father's attention to Thea. "This is Thea. Thea, my dad, Arthur."

"Well, Thea, it's very nice to meet you." He didn't hug her as George's mother had, but his smile was welcoming.

"Come on then," said George's mother. "I'll put on a pot of tea, and we can get to know each other."

"Um, before we do that," said George. "There's someone else that came here with us." He headed over to the doorway to gesture Fred inside. When Fred did so, for a moment, Molly and Arthur could only stare. Their shock was overwhelming and nearly had Thea staggering. George gripped her arm to steady her.

"Thanks," Thea said softly.

"But how?" Molly asked, her face pale.

George looked over at Thea, and she knew that he wanted to tell them the truth-all of it, that Thea had been responsible for bringing him back. She shook her head. He nodded and turned back to them. "Over the last couple of months, I've been helping Harry and Ron try to stop a group called the Elite from bringing You Know Who back. They made an attempt, and one of the people working on the case with us, she wasn't able to stop them, but she was able to change who they brought back, and she brought back Fred."

"But why Fred?" Arthur asked, clearly confused why some witch they had never met would bring their son back from the dead. Thea couldn't exactly blame them.

George shook his head. "She told me that he was the first person she could think of."

That was enough for them. The pair of them wrapped their arms around their son, Molly crying, and Arthur didn't appear to be too far away from it.

Finally, once they had stepped back and let Fred go, Molly turned to Thea. "Why don't you come help me with the tea, dear? Then we can all catch up."

Thea nodded, following Molly into the kitchen. Molly waved her wand and the tea leaves went into the pot along with water and then biscuits floated onto a serving plate. "I'm sorry, but I'm not very adept at magical cooking," Thea told her.

"That's all right, dear," said Molly, who with a few more waves of her wand finished getting everything together and on one serving tray. "I just wanted to have a word. When you came into George's life, you changed it for the better-he's struggled so much since Fred had died. Well, of course, now he's back, although he was starting to come around, I think when you came into the picture. I don't know you yet, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to like you because you brought him back to us."

"I..." Thea was about to say that she hadn't, but that's when she realized that Molly wasn't talking about Fred. She was talking about George. She was telling her that meeting her had led to George being able to heal some from having lost his brother and for him to be able to be more himself again.

Thea was quiet for a moment. "We both went undercover together briefly. During that time...we had a few conversations-one of them about Fred, and the other about my parents, who were killed awhile back. He helped me to heal, too."

Molly squeezed her shoulder. "Well, then I'm glad you both found each other." And they headed back into the living room for tea and biscuits with Arthur, George, and Fred.


	2. Chapter 2: George

After their conversation, Molly had sent urgent owls to George's brothers and within the hour, they started to show up. Percy arrived first, and then Bill and Fleur. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Harry arrived soon after, and Charlie was the last to arrive late that afternoon. By the time they were setting the table for dinner, the Weasley house was very crowded. Everyone was talking and laughing and happier than they had been in a long time. Everyone but Thea.

Although George had been catching up with his siblings, he had been keeping an eye on Thea as well. He knew that she didn't do so well in crowds-not until she got used to everyone in that crowd, and there were a lot of new faces for her. "Hey," he said, gently touching her arm. "Let's go take a walk before dinner."

Thea nodded gratefully, and he took her hand to lead her away from everyone to give her time to settle herself. "I didn't know Mum was going to call everybody, but I should have, and I'm sorry."

Thea shook her head. "It's okay."

"I want you to be comfortable here, and I know you're not right now," he said, as they made their way down the path. They were heading out towards his dad's work shed, but George figured that if they ran into him, Thea could handle one relative much better than a group.

"I wasn't comfortable at Grimmauld Place that first time either," Thea pointed out.

"I know," George said, stopping where they were. Gently he touched a hand to her cheek. "I had hoped to ease you into meeting everyone slowly, so you wouldn't be overwhelmed. Things just didn't work out the way I planned it."

Thea put her hand over his. "Since when do things ever go as planned?" She linked their fingers and lowered their joined hands. "I'm sorry that I get overwhelmed so easily."

Before George could say anything that, his father stepped out of the shed. "Oh, sorry," he said, realizing that he had interrupted a moment.

"It's all right," said George, releasing one of Thea's hands, so they both could turn to face him. "What are you working on?"

"It's just an old muggle telly-vision," said Arthur. "I've been trying to see if I can make it work around magic, but so far, not so much."

Thea peered around the corner, in an attempt to see what Arthur had been working on, but she wasn't at a good angle. "That would have come in handy while I was at Cambridge," she told him, remembering how Fred had kept blowing up her computers when he would use magic.

"Oh, well, maybe you'd like to take a look..."

George touched Thea's arm (because Thea had been ready to do exactly as Arthur had requested) and turned to his father. "Dad, mum is setting the table for dinner as we speak."

"Oh, right," said Arthur. "After dinner then if you'd like."

"I'd like that very much," said Thea, and the three of them walked back over together to join the others.


	3. Chapter 3: Jax

Later that evening, Jax sat in the back seat of the old Buick, the windows rolled down, watching as Ron and Harry ate through the sweets on the front seat. Granted, there hadn't been much to do for the last hour, but still, Jax couldn't relax.

He heard the slight 'pop' as Valentina apparated down the street from the vehicle, making her way up to the house at the top of the hill. Jax gestured toward where she had appeared, and the two in the front seat got serious right away.

"You ready?" Harry asked Jax.

Jax nodded. Silently, he opened the door of the car and crept out. Pointing his wand at the house Valentina was approaching, he whispered, "Seneca." And then he climbed back into the backseat. Immediately, the results could be heard.

"Are you sure she's coming?" came a female voice.

"Yes, of course," came the heavily accented voice of Alex Shafiq.

"And you're sure she's trustworthy?" the woman asked.

"Trustworthy-ish," said Shafiq. "She plays games, but she's the only way we're ever going to get close enough."

There was a knock at the door.

"That will be her," said Shafiq. "Relax, okay?" Footsteps could be heard as he got up to answer the door. "Ah, Valentina. Come in." More footsteps, as he presumably led her back to where the other woman was waiting. "Olivia, may I present to you Valentina Nova. Valentina, Olivia Rowle."

Jax blinked at the name. "Liam's mother? That's who's running things now?"

"What? What is it?" Harry asked.

Jax shook his head. "I met her once...a mousy little thing. Wouldn't say two words without her husband's okay."

"Well, maybe Shafiq is the one running things," said Ron.

"He's the brains of whatever they're up to," said Jax, "but she's the new head. He's catering to her-didn't you hear how they talked?"

"It's very nice to meet you," said Valentina.

"It's not very nice to meet you," Olivia told her. "I don't trust you, but Alex insists that you're the best person to get us what we need, so here we are."

"Well, I'm happy to help," said Valentina. "I just need to know what you're after."

"Not what," said Olivia. "Who. We need Thea Walker."

Jax cursed out loud. They had just let Thea out of protective custody. She wasn't alone, they had made sure of that, but with Orrin gone, they had figured that the threat was much less.

"Why Thea?" Valentina asked.

"For two reasons," said Shafiq. "She's a very skilled witch, and she can help us get what we want...and because she killed Orrin Walsh, and she needs to pay for that."

"I see," said Valentina.

"You don't agree?" Shafiq asked.

"I agree with whatever you say I agree with as long as I get paid," Valentina replied. "I can get you in, but you have to promise me that no one else gets hurt."

"I can't promise that," said Shafiq, "we may have to stun a few people to get to her, but we'll do what we can to reduce casualties."

They talked a bit more, ironing out specific details, while Jax pulled out parchment and a quill and began writing a hasty warning. No way he was leaving Thea unprotected without knowing that the Elite was still after her-even if George and Fred were with her.

"We're gonna make sure she's safe," Harry told him. "But you need to get back before Valentina leaves. We took a risk letting you join us."

"I know," said Jax. When he had agreed to stay in London to help the investigation, Harry had asked him to go undercover as well-he and Valentina were pretending to date, to give her access to the investigation to report back to the Elite-they had had to give them a reason to want to accept her, and if he wasn't at home waiting for her when she got back, if Shafiq had any men following Valentina, the gig would be up.

With a sigh, he got out of the car and after quietly closing the door, he disapparated on the spot. He returned through Diagon Alley, stopping at the Leaky Cauldron to get dinner-as an excuse for why he was out-and then he headed out and into the quiet neighbourhood where the apartment was, making his way up the stairs to the second floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a wizard standing in the shadows, watching. Jax didn't acknowledge him. He kept walking until he reached the apartment, unlocking the door with a quick flick of his wand.

It wasn't long after that before Valentina returned. "There's a man on the corner," she whispered in his ear, using a hug as cover.

Jax nodded, tangling his fingers in her hair, and leaning in as if he were going to kiss her. From the man's vantage point, that was exactly what it would have looked like-that he was leaning in to kiss his girlfriend. "I know," he whispered back. "I saw him when I came in." He manoeuvred her back towards the blinds, and with one hand he twisted the rod, closing them. The pair stepped away from each other.

"I'm sure you know by now that they're after Thea, but they didn't give me specifics as to why-they need her for something-but they also want revenge," Valentina summarized. "I think...that Olivia Rowle wants something that only Thea can get her-and Shafiq just wants revenge."

"How can you be sure?" Jax asked her.

Valentina shook her head. "I'm not. But reading people...I'm pretty decent at it, and that's my observation."

Jax nodded. He was pretty decent at reading people, too. Valentina just seemed to be an exception to that. "They're planning on using our fake relationship as a way to Thea. Harry, Ron, and I will have to come up with a plan to prevent that."

Valentina bit her lip. "I'm not sure we should prevent it."

For a moment, Jax could only stare at her. "Are you out of your mind?"

"No," said Valentina. "But we don't know why they want Thea. We don't know if there are others involved or even if there's a plan B. If we let this play out, we can figure out what they're up to and make sure they're stopped. It's not as if Thea can't handle herself."

Jax shook his head. "This doesn't feel right. I mean, when Voldemort was after Harry, they didn't just offer him up as bait to figure out what old Voldy was after. How is this different?" He was latching onto excuses, and he knew it.

He had turned his back on her, so Valentina came around, putting a gentle hand on his cheek. "Because Harry was a minor, and Voldemort just wanted him dead. Thea's 23, and we don't know what they want with her-they don't want her dead-at least not yet. They're after something else, and if we don't let them get her, if we don't take control of this, then they'll probably try something else. The circumstances are different, and you know it."

Jax did know it, but he didn't want to give into Valentina that easily. "So you would just give her up, just like that?"

Valentina rolled her eyes. "I would trust her to handle herself, although it's apparent that you don't trust me. I'm gonna get a shower." And she headed out of the kitchen, leaving Jax alone to pull out one of the take out containers of fish and chips and sit down at the table. For the longest time, he just stared at the food, trying to reconcile the fact that Valentina was right- their best option was to allow Thea to be captured again.


	4. Chapter 4: Thea

"You deserve to die," Thea whispered as she stood over Orrin, her wand pointed at him as he sat crumpled on the floor.

"Do I? Or are you deciding that out of turn?" he mocked her. "Who gave you the right to decide who lives and who dies? Do you think you're God? That is if there even is a god. Who gave you the right to be judge, jury, and executioner?"

A bright light blasted Orrin from above, and then it was just his crumpled body, crumpled and burned, staring at her, mouth gaping wide.

"I didn't have a choice," she said softly, her voice breaking. "I didn't have a choice."

"Hey, it's okay."

Thea blinked her eyes open, tears glistening her eyelashes as she looked up at George. "Sorry."

"Are you okay?" he asked her, sitting down on the couch beside her. After Orrin's death, they had all decided that there was less of a threat from the Elite, so it was no longer necessary for Thea to stay at Grimmauld Place or in hiding, but so that she wouldn't be alone, everyone agreed that it would be best for her to stay with both George and Fred in Diagon Alley. Both of the brothers had offered to give up their room for her, but she had refused. It was their place-she was just staying there until it was safe.

Thea took a breath. Let it out. "I had the dream again. The one with Orrin."

"You did what you had to do," George said gently.

"I know. But I still knowingly caused his death." Thea hugged her arms to herself to ward off the chill from the dream more than any chill in the air.

"Do you regret it?" George asked her, though he was almost afraid of the answer.

"No," Thea said simply. "No, I regret that I had no choice but to cause someone's death. Logically, it should have been Fred's but...I was afraid. I was afraid that if I let Orrin live, he would try to bring Voldemort back. I was afraid that if I let him live, he would do something to destroy the world...to accelerate the tearing of the fabric of space and time until our universe collapsed on itself. I couldn't..."

George pulled her to him. "You did what you had to do," he whispered again. "And you didn't do it for selfish reasons-Orrin was too dangerous to live."

Thea pulled back to look at him. "At what about me?" she said softly. "I know how to reverse the dais, to bring someone back from the dead just like Orrin did."

"The dais is destroyed, and you have no intention of bringing anyone back, because you know the cost," said George.

"Yes, but if someone else got that knowledge..."

"Thea," George said gently. "Stop looking for trouble. We're not going to let that happen-no matter what. Besides, you're one of the strongest occlumens out there-the only reason Orrin was able to steal the information from you was because he tortured you first and then read your mind. Who else do you know of that is powerful enough to do that?"

Thea shook her head. "I'm still dangerous."

"You're also innocent," he said simply. "I don't believe in sacrificing innocent people-I understand what your concern is, but you don't deserve the same fate as Orrin."

Thea opened her mouth to protest again, but George shook his head. "No."

Thea slid back into his arms and rested her head on his shoulder, allowing him to comfort her. "Thank you."

George pulled back to look at her. "For what?"

"For being there," she said quietly. "I know you didn't sign on for nightmares and all of that."

George shook his head and tilted her chin up, so she was looking at him. "Yes, I did. A few weeks ago, I asked you to be my girlfriend, and you said yes. If I wasn't planning on being there for nightmares and all of that, I wouldn't have asked. You being here isn't an inconvenience for me-or for Fred even. He may complain sometimes, but he didn't hesitate for a second in you staying here or even in offering up his room. And you being here-it makes me happy...nightmares and all. I just wish you wouldn't beat yourself up so much about what happened. You..."

"...did what I had to do," she finished for him. "I know, but knowing it and feeling it are two different things."

"Well, I'm here either way," said George, leaning in to kiss her, but she spotted a letter, floating behind him.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

Thea reached for the letter. "I don't know." She opened it.

Thea,

I am in London currently conducting surveillance on a meeting between Valentina, Alex Shafiq, and Olivia Rowle==and yes, she is that Olivia Rowle-Liam's mother. They are plotting something-we don't know what yet, but they need you to do it. Harry and Ron should be on their way to you once the meeting is over-with Hermione as well I imagine, but I'm guessing you could do more with security than they can. We're going to figure out a plan...and a way to capture Shafiq and Olivia Rowle once and for all, but in the meantime, keep yourself safe.

See you soon,

Jax

Thea passed the letter over to George, though he had been reading it over her shoulder.

"What is their obsession with you?" he asked.

Thea shook her head. "I don't know, but we should reinforce the spells we have on the apartment."

George nodded. "I'll get Fred."

And he left her alone there on the couch, where she sat for a few more seconds before standing and beginning to cast protective enchantments.


	5. Chapter 5: George

George returned with Fred a few moments later, and they joined Thea in casting every protective spell they could think of-Fred had even suggested the Fidelius charm, although Thea nixed that idea for now. Shafiq was a threat, but not as big of one as Orrin had been. George would have liked giving her the added protection, but he also wanted to respect her choice.

It wasn't long after they cast the spells that Harry and Ron had arrived. When they had had a hard time getting in, they had to acknowledge that the three of them had things well in hand, and they headed home for the night.

Once again, the three of them were left alone. "Are you okay?" Fred asked Thea.

Thea nodded, sitting back down on the couch. "Of course."

Fred watched her for a minute. "No, you're not," he said, sitting down next to her. "Why are you lying?"

"Cut her a break," George told him, but Thea shook her head.

"No, it's all right." She sighed. "I brought you back," she told him. "I brought you back, and I ultimately traded Orrin's life for yours-which I don't regret," she was quick to add. "He was a danger to everyone and..."

Fred grabbed her hand to stop her. "Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

Thea sighed. "I'm still coming to terms with it. The right decision or not, I still caused the death of another person, and that's a lot."

Fred looked over at George, who merely nodded. He had basically just had the same conversation with her before the whole thing with the letter and the spells and their late night visitors.

Fred let go of her hand. "Well, I'm grateful for what you did, and if you need anything from me to help you come to terms with it, just ask." He stood and headed back out of the room. George followed.

"You love her."

Fred shrugged. "Well, yeah, but not the way you do. The way I feel about her, it's sort of like how I feel about Ginny, only Thea brought me back to the dead, so there's this sort awe factor there that I don't have with Ginny." He looked over at George. "What, are you afraid I'm going to steal your girlfriend?"

"What? No," said George. He sighed. "Maybe. Mostly I've gotten over it, but you were always the louder, more flashy out of the two of us, and sometimes I get it in my head that she would prefer you over me."

"Are you crazy?" Fred asked him. "We're getting along now because you're here as a buffer, but all we did was annoy each other when we were at Cambridge. Trust me, I have no interest in her in that way, nor she in me." Fred waited a beat before continuing. "Now go back in there, because I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to be alone. She seems a little shaken up."

George nodded. "Thanks."

"Any time," Fred called after him as George headed back out to the living room and to Thea.


	6. Chapter 6: Jax

The next morning, they all met at Fred and George's apartment to discuss with Thea a plan for handling Shafiq and Olivia Rowle's plan to go after her.

"Look, I know it's a risk," said Valentina, "but we've already established that Thea can handle herself. Letting them capture her is the best way to find out what they need her for. Olivia doesn't trust me, so they're not going to tell me, but they'll have to tell Thea."

"I don't think it's a good idea," Fred spoke up. "Thea's part in this was supposed to be over...to drag her back in..."

"I agree with Fred," said George. The two brothers sat on either side of Thea like sentries, ready to protect her. "But it doesn't really matter what we think. It matters what Thea thinks."

The spotlight was all on Thea now, but she just shook her head. "I don't know," she told them.

"It's not as if you've never done this sort of thing before," Valentina pushed.

"Yeah, but I didn't have information that could destroy the world before," Thea said quietly. "Now I don't think that either Shafiq or Olivia Rowle is a legilimens or possess any means of getting that information from me, but it's still a risk if I allow them to capture me, and I'm not sure if it's a risk worth taking. I agree that we need to know what they want, and if we seem too prepared when they come for me, we'll expose Valentina as a spy, but if they capture me, and somehow get that information..."

"I'd be with you as much as possible," Valentina assured her.

"That's not very reassuring," Thea told her, "and you really can't promise that. They might not let you be involved beyond them grabbing me."

George put a hand on Thea's shoulder. "You shouldn't have to do this if you don't want to."

Jax meanwhile, had been quiet, just listening to everyone. This changed things, but only slightly. He had assumed that Thea would be for it, and he had almost been convinced that this was the right course of action-in fact, he still wasn't convinced it wasn't. "If we were able to find a way to minimize the risk...or if we found proof they weren't after that knowledge, would you feel more comfortable with this?" Jax asked her.

Valentina looked over at him, surprised, but Jax avoided her gaze. He was focused on Thea-plus he just didn't want to actually acknowledge that he might agree with Valentina.

Thea, meanwhile, was quiet for a moment, presumably considering his words. "Maybe," said Thea. "I mean, if the benefits to allowing this happen were to exceed the risks..."

Harry nodded. He, Ron, and Hermione had been quiet throughout the entire exchange. "What if we were able to set up some way to track you?"

Ron nodded as well, chiming in. "We've been able to put Valentina under surveillance whenever she meets with Shafiq or any of the others."

"With you, it would be more complicated," Harry continued, "since Valentina meets with them out of her own free will, whereas, we would want them to believe that they've successfully kidnapped you."

"If we have something that belonged to you," said Hermione, "we could follow it right to you."

Thea nodded. "I'll think about it."

"We don't really have a lot of time..." said Ron, but Harry shook his head.

"We can give you to the end of the day. Will that be enough time?"

Thea nodded again. "Yes, thank you."

"We should get going then," said Harry, and he, Ron, and Hermione headed out, though Jax and Valentina stayed.

"Are you all right?" Jax asked Thea.

Thea shook her head, heading out of the kitchen where they had all been sitting. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

Jax followed her. "Because you're not acting like yourself. Normally you would see the logic in this plan before all the rest of us did, and because I know you." He caught up to her and turned her around to face him. "A few weeks ago, you made a choice that ended Orrin's life, and you knew that that was at least a possibility, if not a probable outcome of your choice. I know you," he repeated again more softly. "You're struggling...with the decision you made...aren't you?"

Thea turned away from him, tears forming in her eyes. "I know I made the right decision," she whispered. "I made the right decision, but that doesn't mean that I feel okay about it yet. I basically killed him, and even if that was the best choice before me, it was still a crappy choice to make, and I'm not okay with it yet." She turned back to face him, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I'm not sure I'm ready to go back out there, to do this again-whatever this ends up being."

"I know," said Jax. "And we would never ask, but we don't really have any other options."

"I know," said Thea.


	7. Chapter 7: Thea

Later that afternoon, Thea sat at the table, ready to send her response to Harry and Ron and Hermione. She had already written the letter and addressed it to Harry, but she was hesitant to cast the spell.

George sat down next to her and reached for her hand. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do," Thea said softly, taking the outstretched hand. "Jax and Valentina are right-this is the only way. Believe me-if there was another way, I would suggest it, but there's not."

"I just don't like knowing that you don't want to do this," George said quietly, linking their fingers. "You're still shaken up after what happened with Orrin, and I don't blame you...what happened with that..."

"I killed him," said Thea. "You can say it. I know what I did, and if I had to do it again, I would, but it's still going to take me some time to come to terms with it."

"I know that," said George. "I just wish you had the chance to come to terms with it, without being pressured to go back in."

"Me too," said Thea. "Vel ad detonate addresse." The letter vanished. "It's done." She looked up as Fred came into the room.

"You sent it?" he asked.

Thea nodded.

Fred nodded as well, just as another note appeared, addressed to Thea. She grabbed it and opened it.

Thea,

Thank you for agreeing to help us. We'll be over in the morning to discuss the plan.

Harry

Thea showed George and Fred the letter.

"So there's nothing to do, but to wait then," said Fred. "Listen, I've been thinking...you brought me back from the dead, put up with me all those months at Cambridge-even when I repeatedly blew up your stuff-and you sent Orrin through the dais, so I didn't have to go back. And I know that you didn't do all that stuff for me, but still, the end result was pretty good for me on all counts, so I want to do something for you."

Thea shook her head. "You don't have to..."

"Just shut up," said Fred. "Shut up and let me do something nice for you. I'm going to make dinner-for both of you," he said. "With everything that's been going on, the two of you haven't had a chance to go on a real date, and I want to give you that."

For a moment, Thea didn't say anything. She was beyond touched that Fred wanted to do this for them, but then she realized something. "There's only one problem," she said. "I don't have anything to wear." Thea wasn't big on wearing dresses, so she had brought jeans and a couple of robes with her and that was it.

"I don't care about that," said George. "I just want to spend the time with you."

But Fred was shaking his head. "We're in Diagon Alley, and the shops should be open for another hour. Go buy something-George can help you pick it out. It will give me time to set things up here."

It was interesting, being a legilimens in this situation. Thea knew that Fred was doing this for two reasons-one, the reason he had stated, as a way of thanking Thea for everything she had done for him, but he was also doing this for George as well-he wanted to make it clear that he wasn't a threat to Thea's relationship with George, so as Thea and George made their way out of the apartment and headed for some of the shops in Diagon Alley, Thea turned to George. "Why does Fred think he needs to show you that he's not a threat to our relationship?"

George shook his head. "It's silly." And she could tell that he was embarrassed.

Thea leaned in and kissed him deeply. After a moment, she pulled back. "Fred is my friend-in fact, he's like an annoying little brother much of the time. And my feelings for you are definitely not sisterly."

"I get that," he told her, his cheeks reddening slightly. "For some reason, I just don't always remember," he added in a low voice.

"Try," she suggested, but her tone was lightly teasing as she took his hand and the pair headed down the street toward a wizarding clothing shop. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, Fred really just wanted us out of the apartment so he can set things up for us."

George shook his head. "No. I want this to be a special night for you. I hadn't thought of it before, but I should have. If you're uncomfortable though, we don't have to."

Thea considered. He really was thinking of her and making this special, if for no reason than to distract her from everything that was going on. She nodded. "All right." And they headed into the shop.


	8. Chapter 8: George

The dress Thea had selected was simple, blue, and fell to about her knees. It was very simple, but it suited her. George kind of wished she had gone for heels though, but Thea had opted for simple black flats. The two of them walked back to the apartment together in silence.

When they stepped inside, Fred met them at the door. "I'm not quite ready yet," he told them. "Good, cause neither are we," said Thea, stepping past him to head for the bathroom.

George held up his hands in surrender. "I'll stay out of your way." He didn't know what Thea was up to until she came back about five minutes later. It appeared that she had fixed her hair and put on a little bit of makeup. "You look amazing," he told her.

"Thank you."

Fred stepped into the doorway. "Your dinner awaits," he said with a dramatic bow, before leading them both back into the kitchen. He had gone out. The table was set with candles and good china and silver, along with roast chicken and vegetables, butterbeer and water. "I'll be in my room," said Fred, and taking a plate with him, he vanished down the hall.

For a moment, neither moved or spoke. "He made a really big deal," Thea said softly.

"Yes, he did," said George, matching her tone. And it was clear that him making a big deal was making Thea uncomfortable. "Look, we can tone it down a bit," he said moving to blow out the candles, but Thea touched his arm.

"It's all right." Thea sat down at the table, gesturing for him to sit as well.

He took the seat next to her.

"It just almost feels like we're trying too hard," said Thea, with a shake of her head. "I'm not sure we need all of this, but I know that Fred put a lot of effort into this."

George took her hand in his. "All we need is us."

Thea grinned. "Exactly."

More relaxed now, they dug into the food. After a few minutes, George asked, "What are you planning to do...after this is all over?"

"I don't know," said Thea. "The minister's talking about shutting down the Department of Mysteries after all of this, so I don't know what I would do after that." She made a face. "He was talking about me being an Auror, but I don't know if that's what I want."

"You'd be good at it," George pointed out.

Thea shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm more of a scientist...a researcher. I'd rather work behind the scenes than be out there chasing dark wizards. Although Kingsley did bring up the possibility of me being a consultant...meaning that I would only help the Aurors out in special cases, which I think would suit me better. I might go back to Cambridge-see about doing some consulting there, but I really wish I could go back to my old job."

"Maybe after this is all over, you'll be able to convince him to reopen the Department of Mysteries," said George. "I mean, he'd probably put you in charge of it."

Thea frowned. "He was pretty insistent on closing it, so I honestly doubt it."

"Well, maybe you'll find something else," George suggested, although it sounded like she was pretty set on consulting with the ministry and with the University of Cambridge.

"What about you?" Thea asked.

"Well," said George, "before the war got really underway, Fred and I had talked about opening another store in Hogsmeade. I mean, we have a ways to go to get our current store back to its former glory, but eventually, I'd like to think we might expand."

"That's great," said Thea. "Your shop was a good idea back then, and it's still a good idea now."

George tilted his head to look at her. "Back then?"

Thea flushed a little. "You might not have remembered me, but that doesn't mean that I didn't remember you. I bought quite a few of your products back then."

George raised an eyebrow. "Really? You? Didn't you say at some point that you were a prefect?"

Thea shook her head. "I was, but I had little to no tolerance for Umbridge."

"Ah, now it makes sense. You bought the skiving snackboxes, and let me guess-you only used them in Umbridge's class?" he asked her, a bit amused.

"Either Jax or I would take them, and whoever didn't take them, was designated to help them get to the hospital wing, and then just didn't return to class," Thea explained.

"But you didn't join the DA." If she had joined, he would have remembered her, but he didn't.

"I didn't even know about the DA until after it disbanded," Thea admitted. "I spent most of my free time in classrooms practising spells anyway, so what would I have needed the DA for?"

"Good point," George conceded. "You probably could have led the group."

"And take that away from Harry?" Thea shook her head. "No. And I wasn't a joiner back then. I kept to myself."

George nodded. He knew that what had happened to her parents and Orrin's threats had all but consumed her for the last eight years. He was glad though that now at least she could start to relax and enjoy herself. He wondered how many opportunities for fun she had passed up due to being so focused on preparing to face Orrin again. He didn't want her to waste any more energy on him.

By now they had finished eating and began cleaning up. George resisted the urge to use magic because he knew she preferred the muggle way, and there was something nice about working together to do something so simple and domestic.

Once they had finished, they both stood there in silence for a moment. "I guess I'll let you get ready for bed," George said awkwardly.

Thea, however, leaned in to kiss him. His hands came to rest at her waist as he deepened the kiss. He felt her hands on his shoulders and pulled her closer. Slowly, they made their way back to his room, closing the door behind them.


	9. Chapter 9: Thea

Thea was the first to wake the next morning. George was still asleep next to her, so she rose quietly, putting on her clothes and heading for the shower to get ready for the day. Once she had finished, she found George in the kitchen making breakfast. She gave him a quick kiss before moving to get some orange juice, but he pulled her back for a longer kiss.

"How are you this morning?" He asked her.

"I'm good." Thea was sure that her face was painted with the sappy expression Fred had teased her about when she was writing to George, but she didn't care.

"And the whole thing about being captured?"

Her grin faded a little but didn't go away entirely. "You guys are going to be tracking me, and ideally, I'll only be with them long enough to find out what they are planning. We stop it, and they go to Azkaban. It should be okay. How about you? Are you okay?"

George was quiet for a moment before turning to face her. "I'm worried. I know you can handle yourself, and I know that Shafiq won't be able to get that knowledge from you, but you could still get hurt-especially because I know you're still struggling with what happened at the Elite headquarters."

Thea took the orange juice and sat down at the table. She was quiet for a moment. "I don't know if I'm ever going to be completely okay with what happened, but I did what I had to do, and that's not just an excuse." She turned to look at him as he came to sit down next to her. "If there was another option-I wouldn't go, but there isn't. Valentina can't get close enough. I can. It's that simple."

"Is it?"

"It has to be." Thea looked up as Fred came into the room.

"The others will be here any time," Fred said quietly, getting his breakfast and coming to sit on the other side of Thea.

Thea nodded. "I'm ready."


	10. Chapter 10: Jax

Jax and Valentina arrived shortly after that, followed by Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Jax pulled Thea aside before they got started. "Are you sure about this?"

Thea nodded. "I am."

Jax nodded, and they joined the others to get started.

"They want this to happen as soon as possible," said Valentina, "so I think it's best if Jax and I invite Thea and George over for dinner either tonight or tomorrow night. We can say we're showing them the new place."

"That makes sense," said Thea.

"I don't know if they're going to have help," Valentina continued. "My guess would be yes, but they didn't tell me that."  
"I don't understand," said Ron. "It would be three against three if you were helping them."

"It would," said Valentina. "But they don't trust me, and neither Shafiq or Olivia Rowle is powerful enough to take on Thea alone. And my job will be to deal with Jax anyway. They'll have others there, at least as back up. Unless they're planning to use a sleeping potion."

"All you would have to do is put the potion in our food or drinks, and you could do the whole thing yourself," said Jax.

Valentina shook her head. "They'd never trust me to do it myself-Shafiq and Olivia would show up either way, but I will suggest it-that way we can try to keep it to just them."

Everyone seemed to think this was the best option. "How are you at brewing potions?" Thea asked.

"I'm fair at it," said Valentina. "If we were talking about the draught of living death, then I'd say that's a little out of my league, but a simple sleeping draft I can manage."

Thea nodded and seemed satisfied with that. In fact, everyone seemed satisfied with this plan.

"I will bring this up to them, and see if I can get them to go for it," Valentina told them, and with that, it was time for her and Jax to leave.


	11. Chapter 11: Jax Again

It turned out that Valentina was able to convince Shafiq and Olivia Rowle to go along with her plan-but as expected, they were coming out to help. No other members of the Elite would be involved in the actual kidnapping. Jax had sent an owl to Thea and George with the official invite, and then there was nothing to do but wait and prepare the dinner.

"You know at some point, you are going to have to leave the room," Valentina said quietly. "I need to have the opportunity to dose it with the sleeping potion." When Jax showed no signs of leaving, Valentina turned to look at him. "I'm not going to poison you...or them."

Jax ignored her, and Valentina sighed. "Look, read my mind if you have to. I'm not playing games with you. Not anymore."

Finally, Jax sighed and turned to look at her. Silently, he cast the spell. After a moment he sighed again. "Fine. You're telling the truth."

Valentina turned to watch him for a moment. "Why do you hate me so much? I know you don't trust me, but none of you really do, and I don't blame you for that, but you actively hate me, and I can't figure out why."

"Don't you?" Jax asked her, though he knew she wasn't a mind reader.

"No, I don't." Before she could say anything else though, Jax had closed the distance between them, fisted a hand in her hair and kissed her. After a moment, he stepped back, but Valentina pulled him back in. And then there was a knock at the door, and the two of them jumped apart. "You know we're going to have to talk about this later," said Valentina as Jax went to answer the door.

"Yeah, that's pretty much a given," said Jax, opening the door. As expected, Thea and George were standing on the other side. "Come on in," he told them, stepping aside.

"It's a really nice place," said Thea, before Jax closed the door. "Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny are outside," she said once the door was closed. "Harry and Ron will be following us-I gave them my hairbrush so they can track us-and Hermione and Ginny are waiting to come in and wake you guys up after we've left," she added, referring to Jax and George.

Valentina nodded. "Well, dinner's ready. I hope you like chicken."

It was mostly pointless for her to make the comment, but if anyone was listening, it did make sense. The four of them headed for the table, but Thea grabbed Jax's arm, holding him back for a second. It figured she had picked up on something. "Are you all right?"

"As all right as I will be," he told her. "Let's just get this over with." And he and Thea joined Valentina and George at the table. Jax waited until George and Thea had taken their first bites, and then he took a bite of the chicken. Everything went dark.


	12. Chapter 12: Thea

When Thea woke up, she was lying on a couch, her hands handcuffed together. "What's going on?" she asked groggily, although, on some level, she already knew what was going on.

"You're going to help us with something," said Shafiq.

Thea narrowed her eyes at him. "Now why would I do that?"

Shafiq waved his wand at her, forcing her up to her feet.

"What is this?"

"You're not the only one who can invent spells," he told her. "I may not be able to control your mind, but I have ways of persuading you to do as we ask."

"You said you weren't going to hurt her," said Valentina.

"I said I wouldn't hurt the other two," Shafiq said. "I made no such promises where she was concerned."

Thea shook her head at Valentina. "You betrayed us."

Valentina shrugged. "Did you have any doubts that I would?"

"You're going to get us into Azkaban," Olivia spoke up.

Thea shook her head, blinking at her. "What?" But the question was hardly necessary. "You want me to help you break Liam out. That's what this is about?"

Olivia sighed. "He's a disgrace, but he's still my son."

"He's a murderer," said Thea. "You want me to help break my parents' murderer out of prison?" She wasn't scared of Liam, but something about helping to get him out of jail really made her feel sick.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Oh, we're not on about that again, are we? My son was cleared of that. He's no murderer."

Thea didn't reply to that-clearly, this woman was delusional, and right now, Thea wasn't going to be able to convince her of anything...not even the truth.


	13. Chapter 13: Jax

Jax awoke to find Hermione standing over him. "Thea?" he asked.

"Harry and Ron are tracking her," said Hermione. "She'll be fine."

Jax glanced over and saw that Fred and Ginny sat with George.

A letter appeared, addressed to George. He grabbed it and opened it, before passing it over to Jax.

George,

We've managed to track Thea back to the house we were watching the other night. Valentina is there as well. It turns out that Olivia Rowle wants Thea to help them break Liam out of Azkaban. So far, Thea isn't cooperating with them, but we're still watching to see if there is more.

Ron

Jax shook his head. "Liam again?"

George looked over at Jax. "You know where this place is?"

"Yeah," said Jax. "Why?"

"Let's go listen with Harry and Ron then," said George.

Jax raised an eyebrow. "That...is an excellent idea."

Hermione shook her head at them. "You were supposed to stay here," she told them. "I mean, you may have to relieve them later..."

"Let's go," said George, ignoring Hermione, and the pair disapparated.

They reappeared down the street from the house, and Jax immediately spotted the Green Buick parked a few houses down. He and George headed for it, and once they got near enough, Jax knocked on the window. "Can we join you?" He asked.

Harry unlocked the doors, and both he and Ron seemed more resigned than upset that they had deviated from the original plan.

"Now these are schematics for the prison," said Shafiq, and they could hear some ruffling of papers. "How would you get in?"

"Me?" Thea asked. "I would just walk in. I used to work for the ministry after all, and I am still in good standing with the Minister for Magic."

"How would you get us in?" Olivia Rowle asked.

"I don't know," said Thea.

Shafiq started to say something, but Thea interrupted him. "I don't know. I don't know I could get you in."

"Then I suggest you think on it," said Shafiq, "because you're not leaving here until you do." He turned to Valentina. "You can go."

"And where am I supposed to go?" Valentina asked. "It's not as if I can go home. I helped you kidnap Jax's best friend. He's not likely to forgive that."

"That's not our problem," said Shafiq. "Now get out!"

"Fine," said Valentina, heading for the door.

"It wouldn't hurt to let her stay just for the night, would it?" Olivia asked him.

"Yes, it would," said Shafiq. "She's been playing both sides since the beginning. She can't stay here-who knows-she might help Thea escape or worse, plot with her to get us caught. She needs to go. Now!" This part was presumably to Valentina, as she appeared on the street a moment later. She didn't head for the car though, even though she had to know that it was there. Instead, she headed down the street and disapparated with a crack!

"Stay here and make sure Thea's safe," Jax told the others. "I'm going to see what Valentina's up to." He stepped out of the car and pulled out a locket that Valentina had left on the nightstand in her room. While she had been dosing the food, he had been looking for a way to track her just in case. "Avenseguim." The necklace began floating, and Jax followed after it.

Luckily for Jax, Valentina didn't go far. The necklace led him to St. Mungo's Hospital, and Jax started to have an idea as to where she was headed. He followed her anyway, whispering, "Seneca", as he stopped outside of the hospital room.

"Have you been able to figure out what Nott is up to?" Came the gravelly voice of an old man. "He seems to be the only other real threat."

"No, not yet, Professor. He's less trusting than the others. Fawley let it slip though that he is working on something, but he clammed up when I asked for more information," Valentina told him.

Professor? Jax shook his head. "Finite." And he headed into the room. "I think you have some explaining to do."

Valentina looked over at him and sighed. "Sorry," she said to the man in the hospital bed.

"It's all right, my dear," he said. "I assume that this is Jax?"

Valentina nodded.

"Professor?" Jax asked. "I thought this was your father?"

Valentina looked over at the man in the bed again.

"I'm Professor Oscar Silva, the former headmaster of Castelobruxo," he said in an accent that Jax wasn't familiar with, but assumed was Brazilian. "Valentina infiltrated the Elite on my orders. She handed Thea over for the purposes of getting Orrin in the same room as the dais so Thea could get rid of him. This was on my orders as well."

Jax looked from Valentina to Silva and back again. "How did you know that Thea would send him into the dais?"

"I knew Orrin...a long time ago. We worked on a top-secret project together for the Brazilian ministry. We were trying to understand the nature of death, but Orrin tried to take things too far," Silva explained. "He fled Brazil, but young though I was, I had made several connections. I've had people watching him ever since."  
"Then you knew about Thea." Jax said it quietly, though his fists were clenched. This man had known what Thea had gone through and had done nothing to stop it, nothing to help her.

"After the fact yes," Silva admitted. "And I am afraid that I am the one who made the fateful prediction that sealed her fate. I didn't figure out what he was after until it was too late, but I should have, but I think it was fate that I didn't. After Orrin had threatened her though...I started to keep tabs on her-she was safe when she was at school-I knew your headmaster well."

"You knew Albus Dumbledore?" Jax asked. He was still trying to take all of this in.

Silva nodded. "I did. I considered him a friend and was most aggrieved to hear of his passing. I had contacts at Cambridge as well."

Jax blinked at him. "You really were watching her...all the time."

Silva nodded again.

"You know she was really shaken up," said Jax. "How is she supposed to deal with having caused Orrin's death."

"She would have had to cause someone's death either way." Silva coughed into his hand. "If it hadn't been Orrin, it would have been Fred Weasley. She'll sleep better at night for it having been Orrin than Fred. Fred, I'm afraid, she never would have gotten over, and it would have ruined the future she and George have together."

Jax blinked again. "Wait, what? How do you know about George?"

Silva sighed. "Thea Walker has been the star of so many of my visions and dreams long before she was ever even born. Every once in a while an individual is born that has such a profound effect on the cosmos, that the universe can't help but sit up and take notice. I don't know why I've seen what I've seen about her, or why it was me in the first place, but I know this-she's important-to everything. Whether it was because of Orrin's influence, as horrible as it was, or if it's because of something inside her, I suppose we'll never know, but she has a hand in most of the important wizarding events that will come to pass over the next few decades-at least in Europe anyway."

For a moment, Jax could only stare at him. It was almost too much to absorb.

"Overwhelming, isn't it?" Valentina whispered.

Jax turned to her and was about to say something when Silva interrupted. "What is important now is that we figure out what Theodore Nott is up to and how to stop him."

Jax shook his head. "But what about Thea? And the whole plan to break into Azkaban?"

"Are Thea and the others incapable of handling that?" Silva asked.

"What about Thea's knowledge about being about to reverse a dais to bring someone back?" Jax asked.

"Unless I am mistaken, Alex Shafiq and Olivia Rowle do not have a dais or the means to create one. For that matter-they don't even seem interested in that," Silva pointed out. He turned to Valentina. "Can you raise the mattress a little bit?"

Valentina nodded and moved to adjust it, while Silva continued. "Nott, however, may have that ability. He is especially skilled in creating magical objects."


	14. Chapter 14: Thea

Thea had intended to stay awake. The idea of falling asleep while she was being held captive naturally made her uncomfortable. But at some point in the middle of the night, she dozed off and found herself standing face to face with an old man.

The man was small, hunched, and wrinkled. His hair was patches of white over his head and chin and his skin dark. She didn't think she had ever seen this man before, but something about him was familiar. Those eyes...where had she seen those eyes before? "Oscar?"

The man smiled. "I'm surprised that you recognized me. It's been a long time."

They had both been children when they had connected, although, for each of them, it had been a very different time-Oscar had grown up in the 1930s and 40s, in the years between the two world wars, and Thea had grown up in the 1980s and 90s-a time of relative peace-for most anyway. "Longer for you," Thea said softly.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that I haven't seen you," he told her. "Come walk with me." They were in his village in Brazil-or not far from it anyway, as he led her down the dirt road. "You tend to be one of the main subjects of my visions, but I don't think that's why I've come to see you tonight. Eight years ago, I was diagnosed with ALS. I'm entering into the later stages of the disease-I don't have much time left."

"I'm sorry."

Oscar shook his head. "I'm not-I've lived a wonderful life-had four beautiful children and many more grandchildren. Even a few great-grandchildren. I've lived. Can you say the same?"

Thea opened her mouth to respond. Then closed it. "No, not really." Mostly, she had spent her time in classrooms practising spells. She didn't necessarily regret it, because she wouldn't have survived everything that had happened the last few months-she wouldn't have been able to stop Orrin from bringing back Voldemort and essentially destroying the world.

"But you will," said Oscar. "You will," he reiterated. "And when that boy asks you to marry him-and he will, you tell him yes."

"Excuse me?" Thea knew that the man was a seer, but she didn't see why he would have seen anything about her and George.

"Are you shocked? Or just annoyed that I'm telling you what to do?" Oscar asked her, amusement in his tone.

"Both," she told him.

"He'll make you happy," Oscar said quietly. "Now," he continued, abruptly changing the subject. "We need to discuss how you are going to get Alex Shafiq and Olivia Rowle into Azkaban."


	15. Chapter 15: George

George waited from his post inside of Azkaban, trying to ignore the fact that Liam was behind him. Thea had reached out to the Minister for Magic requesting permission to take friends of her parents on a tour of Azkaban. Her parents had been muggles, but part of the cover story was that they had become friends with a witch and wizard in their neighbourhood, only finding out that they were magical after Thea had been accepted at Hogwarts.

The entire team was magically disguised-only Jax and Valentina were missing, though they had received a message from Jax explaining that he and Valentina were following up on something else. All George could think was that it must have been important for Jax to leave helping Thea to the rest of them.

He made his expression neutral as Thea came in, leading Alex Shafiq and Olivia Rowle into the prison.

"There's really not much to see," said Thea as she approached George and the cell containing Liam.

Liam said nothing. George supposed that even he wasn't dumb enough to blow his mother's cover.

Shafiq and Olivia Rowle moved closer, while Thea took a step back. On Harry's signal, George grabbed Thea from behind, pulling her to safety, while the others sent stun spells at Shafiq and Liam's mother. "I hope I didn't startle you," George told her.

Thea shook her head. "You didn't."

Of course. Her legilimency would have alerted her to what was going on. "I had hoped," he told her, holding out her wand. She didn't need it as Shafiq and Liam's mother had been neutralized, but he knew she would feel relieved to have it back.

Thea accepted the wand. "Please tell me that this is all over."

George shook his head. "I don't know. Jax and Valentina are following up on another lead or something."

Thea nodded as the pair of them headed out of the prison. The others could handle the two prisoners. "That's right," she said with a shake of her head. "Sorry, I didn't sleep much last night. They're trying to figure out what Nott is up to."

"Great," said George. "Another former Death Eater." And they disapparated, returning to Diagon Alley. "Wait a minute," he said, stepping back to look at her. "How did you know that?" He raised his wand. "You're not really Shafiq or Liam's mother using polyjuice potion, are you?"

"No," said Thea with a chuckle, "although if I was, I would say the same. No, it's sort of a long story. Can we get inside, and I'll tell you?"

"We can go in here." George steered her into the Leaky Cauldron.

They took a table in a secluded archway and sat across from each other. Almost as soon as they had sat down, a waitress appeared with menus and glasses of water. "Today's specials are shepherd's pie, fish and chips, and the soup of the day is chicken noodle. Would you like to order now or do you need a little time?"

Thea shook her head. "I'm fine."

George sighed. "Thea, just order something. I'm sure that Shafiq and Liam's mother were not exactly focused on giving you something to eat."

Thea lowered her voice. "I don't have any money."

George closed his eyes for a moment. How he had ended up dating someone as stubborn as she was, was beyond him. He opened his eyes. "Seeing as you had no money on your person when they kidnapped you, how could you? Can't a boyfriend buy his girlfriend lunch?"

Thea sighed but nodded. "I'll have the soup and salad," she told the waitress, handing the menu back.

"Shepherd's pie," said George. The waitress took his menu and headed away to put their orders in.

"So I see that you're convinced that I'm me now."

"Only you would be this difficult about letting me buy you lunch," George told her.

Thea chuckled. "So this was a test then?"

George shook his head. "No. Just a lucky accident. So how do you know that Jax and Valentina are investigating Nott?"

Thea took a sip of her water, clearly trying to delay in answering.

"Thea, what aren't you telling me?" he asked. It seemed that she had more secrets, and that worried him.

"Look, when I was little, I would have these dreams." Thea shook her head. "They weren't visions, not really, but..."

"What were they?" George already knew that Thea was powerful. Was this some sort of extension of her abilities?

"I connected...with a wizard who grew up in the 1930s. He was in the 1930s, just a boy, and I was in the 1980s," Thea explained. "I don't know why we would connect, but we did. We haven't connected for a long time, but last night we did. Valentina and Jax are working with him."

George didn't respond right away. In truth, he didn't know what to say. It didn't change how he felt about her-although maybe he did feel a little more in awe of her, but mostly, he was just worried about why she had connected to this other wizard and what it would mean.

Thea reached for his hand. "He's a good guy, and after this is all over, you should meet him. He's a seer, and he apparently approves of my relationship with you."

George blinked at her. "How does he even know about me?"

Thea shrugged. "I would assume he's had visions about you."

"What exactly did he say?"

Thea shook her head. "I'm not going to tell you that. Not right now. Someday I probably will, and you're going to have to be satisfied with that. Trust me-you don't want to know right now."

George sat back as the waitress brought out their food. "You'll tell me eventually?"

Thea nodded, and George was satisfied with that. He took a bite of his shepherd's pie and chewed thoughtfully. Once he had swallowed, he looked over at her. "Maybe we should talk about the other night though."

Thea had just taken a bite of her salad, which she swallowed. "I don't have any regrets if that's where you're going with this."

"Good, because I don't either," George told her, and he meant it.

"You do make me happy," Thea said then, and they settled in to eat their lunch.


	16. Chapter 16: Jax

Jax had borrowed Harry's old Buick and sat in the driver's seat, parked down the road from where Nott supposedly lived. Valentina was on her way up the hill, and once she was out of view, he stepped out of the car. "Seneca," he whispered, before getting back inside.

"We need her," came one male voice, but the other protested.

"That doesn't mean I trust her. Either of them for that matter."

"Talking about me?" Came Valentina's voice.

"As a matter of fact," came the first voice. "I believe you've met Isaac Fawley," he said.

"I have," said Valentina, but her attention seemed to be on something else. "You built another one?"

"Who do you think built the original one, the one from the Elite headquarters?" Jax presumed this was Nott.

"But what do you need another dais for?" Valentina asked, and Jax cursed out loud. Another dais? He had thought they were done with that.

Scrambling, he grabbed a bit of parchment and a quill and began scratching down a warning to Thea, while he continued listening to their conversation.

"To bring him back of course," said Nott. "But to do that..."

"You need Thea," Valentina finished for him. "Why does everyone need Thea to make their plans happen?"

"Now," said Nott, "because we know that you can't be trusted, you're not leaving here. You're going to tell us how we get Thea to reverse the dais, and then we-Fawley, the rest of the Elite, and I will handle it."

Jax cursed again. Thea wasn't the only one in trouble. He switched gears to send the letter to Harry instead and didn't notice a man approaching the car. He finished off the letter when a spell was shot through the window, shattering the glass. Jax ducked, and the spell just barely missed him. He sent a stunning curse back, more to get the attacker to back off, so he could get the letter sent. Using his wand, he added, 'help!', and non-verbally cast the spell to send the letter as his attacker opened the door to get to him. "Stupify!" Jax yelled out, stunning the wizard. Another spell came flying towards him as another wizard approached, but Jax deflected that, before sending another stunning spell at the second attacker. He missed, and more spells began flying from other directions.

Jax cursed for what was probably the fiftieth time that hour and crouched low, trying to reach for the door to close it. Pieces of glass scraped at his skin. A spell shot past his right ear, just barely missing him as he managed to grab the door handle. He slammed the door shut, and still staying low, he reached for the key already in the ignition. A spell shot his wand out of his right hand, but he just needed the key. He turned it, and the engine roared to life. Jax shot into reverse and whirled the car around to drive away when the car just stopped.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Members of the Elite were rounding on him, surrounding the car. Jax reached for his wand, but it had been knocked into the back seat. The car door opened, and Jax felt his fingers wrap around his wand, but it was too late.

"Petrificus totalus."

Jax felt his body go stiff as a board. It was up to Harry and the others now.


	17. Chapter 17: George

George and Thea finished their lunch and headed back to the apartment. "Why don't you get some rest?" George suggested. Thea had said she didn't get much sleep the night before, and though she was unhurt, he wanted to give her some time to deal with what had happened.

Thea shook her head. "I want to be awake when the others get back."

"Well, then just rest," said George. "I'm sure you've got a book or something to read that will relax you." Over the weeks he had spent with her there at the apartment, he had observed her reading on more than one occasion, especially in the evening before she went to bed.

"Will it get you to stop worrying?" Thea teased him gently.

George pulled her to him in a light embrace. "Maybe some. I worry, because I know you're struggling, and I don't exactly like that we had to let you be kidnapped."

Thea pulled back to look at him. "I'm fine-they didn't hurt me-they didn't really even do anything, to be honest. It was almost laughable how easy it was to deal with the two of them. And it's over-Jax and Valentina are handling Nott, and Shafiq and Olivia are in Azkaban." She relaxed in his arms.

"I'm just glad you're safe," he murmured, and they stood like that, just holding each other, for a few minutes. Finally, George pulled back. "You should get some rest," he said, leading her into the bedroom. She had just settled in with a book when they could hear the key turning in the lock. "I'll get it," he told her and headed back out.

Fred was just letting Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny inside. "Where's Thea?" Harry asked.

"In the bedroom, reading," George said with a frown. Something wasn't right.

Harry nodded to Fred, who headed in that direction.

"What's going on?" George asked as everyone stepped further into the apartment. "Or should we wait for Thea and Fred?"

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all looked over at Harry, none of them apparently willing to speak. Harry shook his head. "It's best if Thea isn't involved in this conversation. She'll have to be told, but we were hoping you could help with that."

Something was definitely wrong. "What happened?" George asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

Harry closed the distance between them and handed George a folded piece of parchment addressed to Harry. It was Jax's writing. George felt sick in the pit of his stomach. He opened the letter. The writing was all but scribbled as Jax described what he had heard from Valentina's meeting with Nott-there was another dais-and then the writing got messier, stating that Nott was now holding Valentina hostage. And then the last word was messiest of all...help.

"We think that Jax was captured just after he managed to send that," Harry said quietly. "And we think they're going to try to use them to get Thea to reverse the dais again. Do you see why we wanted to talk to you first before telling Thea about this?"

Before George could answer him, Thea came walking out of the bedroom, with Fred at her heels. "I want to see it."

"Sorry, I tried," Fred told Harry.

George meanwhile, turned to Thea. "Just remember-we don't know anything yet."

"Please." Her eyes were pleading with him. Even if he could fight that, he didn't want to...he didn't want to keep her in the dark. He handed her the letter and watched as she read through it line by line, and when she had finished, there were tears in her eyes. "Well, we have to go get them! We have to go help them!" Thea started moving toward the door.

George grabbed her arms and steered her back further into the room. "You can't. You can't go anywhere near this."

"But they took him because of me." She was crying openly now, not just a couple of tears, but a whole torrent of them streaming down her face.

"And that's why you can't be involved." All George wanted to do was hold her and to comfort her, but he had to make sure she understood this first. He had to make sure that she could see the situation logically and reasonably, even in her grief. "You're their end game, and if they get you, they can bring Voldemort back. And then we'll have to deal with another hole in the space-time continuum, on top of him being back again. You can't be involved."

Thea nodded, only the slightest of movements, but that was enough for George. He pulled her into his arms as she cried on his shoulder. He looked at Harry over the top of her head. "You had better come up with one hell of a plan for getting them back."


	18. Chapter 18: Jax

When Jax awoke, he was on a cold, hard floor. His body was no longer stiff...at least not from the spell. His hands were tied behind his back, and his limbs were sore. He opened his eyes.

The room he as in was sparse. The floor was cold concrete, and it wasn't even finished. Steel poles came down from the ceiling as structural focal points, and the ceiling was just open wooden beams. Except for what appeared to be an old generator, there was nothing and no one there except for him and Valentina.

"It's about time," she said softly. She was positioned in front of one of the poles, sitting up, and by the way she was moving, Jax was assuming that she was trying to get free.

"Where are we?" Jax asked, attempting to shift his position to sit up. He fell spectacularly on his face.

"I don't know," said Valentina. "They blindfolded me until we got inside, but I know we disapparated, so we're not at Nott's mansion anymore."

Jax nodded at that as he attempted to break free of the ropes binding him.

"Ah, our guest of honour is awake!" A man, presumably a wizard by his robes and just the situation, stood at the top of the stares. "Call Nott!" he shouted behind him, and some grumbling could be heard in response. He turned, so his back was to Jax and Valentina. "I said, 'call Nott!'"

"All right, all right," could be heard, along with some moving around. The wizard seemed satisfied with that and turned back to focus on Jax and Valentina, each step he took caused a squeak on the stairs.

"We're not going to tell you anything." Valentina gave him a defiant stare.

The man laughed. "Oh, I don't want you to tell me anything. You don't have or know anything that I want."

Valentina shook her head. "Then why not just let us go?"

Honestly, Jax was wondering why he didn't just kill them and be done with it. There was no way he was just going to let them go.

"Because while you don't have anything I want, I might be able to exchange the two of you for what we do want-or him anyway." The man gestured toward Jax. "My guess is that Thea Walker would do just about anything to save him."

"Thea won't be allowed anywhere near you," Jax scoffed at him. "Do you really think they're stupid? Taking us just meant that they would have hidden her so well that you will never find her."

"Somehow I doubt that."

There was a loud 'CRACK', and another set of footsteps approached. "Ah, Fawley, he's awake."

Nott held out a crystal and said a few words. "Say hello, Jax."

Jax just looked at him. Nott nodded, and Fawley walked over to Jax, pulled his head up by the hair and punched him in the face. "You can cooperate," said Nott, "or he'll just keep hitting you. Either way, we will have proof of life."

Jax coughed. "Fine. I'm alive, but alive or dead, you won't get anything from Thea." If she was alone, maybe she would give in, but he was trusting that George would make sure she thought it over before she did anything. She knew that she couldn't give them what they wanted-George would just have to remind her.

"And you?" Nott turned toward Valentina. "You're not as valuable, but I might as well get proof of life."

Valentina sighed. "Fine. Whatever." She rolled her eyes. "This is Valentina, and I'm still alive."

"Good," said Nott, before muttering another incantation and handing the crystal to Fawley. "Deliver this to Harry Potter. Let him know that we will exchange them for Thea Walker."

Fawley nodded. "I know what to do."

Both men headed back up the stairs, and with a crack! They both disapparated.


	19. Chapter 19: Thea

"They'll get him back," George said later when they were alone in the bedroom.

Thea rested her head against his shoulder. "You don't know that." She shook her head. "I know they'll try, and I know that I can't be involved, but that doesn't mean that it's not hard." There really wasn't anything more to say, and Thea finally allowed herself to fall asleep there in his arms. And when she finally did go under, she found that she wasn't alone. There in the white space, stood Oscar.

"What are you doing here?" Thea asked.

"I don't have much time," he told her. "The end is coming for me, but you have to know, you have to see..."

Thea shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

"Our powers connect us-I see the future, and you see inside, see what everyone tries to hide-they're connected," Oscar rambled on.

Thea shook her head again. "I don't understand."

Oscar grabbed her hand, and the next thing she knew, they were in a basement-and Jax and Valentina were there. Members of the order apparated in.

"Did you really think that Thea would come?" Harry asked.

"No," said Nott. "I knew she wouldn't-not yet. But I don't need her yet." He sent a shot of green light at Harry, and it was deflected. "I just wanted to ensure that all of you wouldn't be here to stop us."

There were repeated loud cracks as the rest of the Elite arrived and soon jets of green light were everywhere, and members of the order were dropping like flies. A few managed to disapparate with Jax and Valentina, but the rest didn't make it.

Thea stood there with Oscar, surrounded by bodies. Nott couldn't see them. He gestured to the remaining Elite, and they stood in a circle around the dais and began to chant. After a few minutes, Voldemort stepped out of the dais. "My Lord," said Nott, bowing low. The rest of the Elite joined him.

Thea turned to Oscar. "He already knows how to bring Voldemort back." She shook her head. "Then what does he need me for?"

Oscar snapped his fingers and the bodies vanished. It was as if time had rewound itself back to before the Order had arrived. This time, Thea arrived alone. Future Thea looked over at her friends. "I couldn't let them kill you."

Nott sent a disarming spell at her, and she reflected it, sending a stun spell his way when a stun spell came from behind. Nott kicked her wand out of her hand. "You won't need that anymore." He pointed his wand at Jax. "Avada kedavra." And then he did the same with Valentina. Like with the previous vision, the Elite gathered around the dais.

Thea turned to Oscar. "So either way, he's going to bring Voldemort back? There's nothing we can do?"

It was Oscar's turn to shake his head. "If either of these paths is followed, he will come back. Keep watching."

Voldemort stepped out of the dais, and the Elite bowed before him. Then Nott turned to Thea, reversing the stun spell. "Now...how do we fix the tear to the space-time continuum?"

Thea blinked. "That's what he doesn't know?"

"He will torture it out of you," Oscar said quietly. "I do not know if there is a way to stop this-but if you do not find a way, it will come to pass." He took in a deep breath. Let it out. "Now I have to go. My time is up," he said. "Find a way to stop them." His voice was fading and suddenly, he vanished, leaving Thea in a white room. She opened her eyes.

"It's a trap."

"What?" George blinked at her sleepily.

"This whole thing is a trap," Thea said. "He doesn't care about Jax and Valentina. He doesn't even need me right now. He knows how to reverse the dais. He wants me to close the tear that he's going to open."

"The tear in what?" George asked her, alert now.

"In the space-time continuum."


	20. Chapter 20: Thea Again

"So let me get this straight," said Ron, "they're not really after you?"

"Oh, they are," Thea assured him, "but they're not after me for the reasons we thought." They were at George and Fred's apartment, sitting around the dining room table discussing what to do next.

"But it doesn't really change anything, does it?" Hermione asked. "They're still after you, so you can't go."

Thea sighed. "If I don't, everyone else dies. If I do go, Jax and Valentina die. I think we need to try something else altogether."

"Not to be difficult, but what other alternative is there?" Harry asked.

"I think that we need to look back at what's worked in the past," said Thea. "They want me, so let's give them me-and only me. They just won't know which one is the real me."

"That's really clever," said Hermione. "Just like when we got you from your aunt and uncle's to the Burrow."

"Yeah, but you're forgetting that people died in that endeavour, Hermione," Harry pointed out.

"Not to be difficult," said Ron, "but how is more than one Thea going to help Jax and Valentina?"

"Distraction," said Thea. "While they're trying to work out what happened, two of us will get Jax and Valentina out of there."

"And that's it," said Ron. "And what happens if they aren't distracted? We did all die in the first vision."

"It will work," said Thea. "But we'll need to have the rest of the order there for backup because they definitely have backup."

An hour later, members of the order started arriving, including Neville and Luna, who were getting ready to join Harry and Ron on a scouting mission. Harry and Ron were going to be following Valentina's earring, while Neville and Luna were going to follow Jax's toothbrush, and in order to prevent them from being recognized (and therefore attacked), they were all going in disguise. Both Thea and Hermione were the best at transfiguration out of the group assembled, so they were taking care of disguising them.

"Wow, I really do look different," said Luna, after Thea had finished working on her disguise. Her usual blonde hair was now brown, and her big, eagle eyes were now much smaller and also brown. Thea had also changed the shape of her face from its normal oval-shaped to a rounder more heart-shaped face. "I'm entirely indistinguishable," said Luna. The idea had been for them to blend into the background.

Thea got started on Neville. She started out by making his hair lighter and longer and gave him more facial hair. She made his eyes lighter, and like with Luna, she made his face rounder.

Neville looked in the mirror. "Thanks, Thea. I hardly recognize myself."

"You're welcome," Thea told him. "Although really, I should be thanking you."

"We'll find them," said Neville. "We'll find them, and then we'll all go in and bring them back. Your plan's a good one. It's going to work."

"Thanks, Neville," said Thea. And then it was time for them to head out.


	21. Chapter 21: Jax

There wasn't much to do in the basement. Aside from bringing down food a few times and bringing Jax and Valentina upstairs one at a time to use the restroom, it was just the two of them downstairs with their hands tied in front of them-they had had to be switched, so they could eat.

Jax had taken to staring into space for hours at a time-it wasn't as if there was anything else better to do.

"You know, this might be a good time to talk about that kiss."

Valentina's voice pierced his stupor, and Jax looked over at her. "You want to talk about this now?"

Valentina shrugged. "Why not? It's not as if we have anything better to do."

She had a point. He sighed. "Fine. Let's talk."

"So why did you kiss me?" Valentina asked. "You've known I've been interested in you since Africa, so why now?"

Jax was quiet for a long moment. "Because I didn't trust you. I knew you were being less than truthful with me, but I could never figure out what it was you weren't saying. I may be a legilimens, but I'm not that good at it."

"I'm sorry," Valentina told him. "I wish I could have told you, maybe I should have told you, but initially, I didn't want to break my cover, and then I wasn't sure how you would react to be getting Thea kidnapped."

"Which time?" Jax asked sarcastically. Thea had been kidnapped so many times in the last few months that he was beginning to lose count, and Valentina had essentially gotten her kidnapped twice."

"The first time," Valentina said quietly. "Just before Orrin died."

"You mean before you tricked her into killing him."

"Someone had to die either way," said Valentina. "Fred being back...it was against the laws of nature, so someone had to die to right the balance, and whether you like it or not, it had to be Orrin. If he had lived, he never would have stopped trying to bring Voldemort back. It had to happen."

"And now what about these guys?" Jax couldn't believe that killing was the only answer. "Should we kill them as well? When does the killing stop?"

"This isn't the same," Valentina said, shaking her head. "They haven't done anything yet. Orrin knew how to bring Voldemort back, and he would have tried. Even if Nott knows how to do this, he's waiting for some reason."

"Because he knows the damage it will cause," Jax said quietly. "That's why he needs Thea. Maybe he knows how to bring Voldemort back or no, but he doesn't know how to fix the tear-he needs Thea for that because he knows that she knows how to do it, and she will do it, because if she doesn't, the world will be destroyed. They better not let Thea come here in their rescue attempt."

"They won't," said Valentina. "You know that George has got her locked up good and tight now."

Jax could tell that she wasn't as confident in her words as she came across, but he appreciated the effort. Before he could say anything else, thank her for trying or bring the conversation back to the two of them, there were shouts and curses from upstairs and then two loud cracks of someone disapparating. "Scouts," Jax said quietly. "Probably Harry and Ron just checking things out. They'll be coming soon." All they could do was hope that Thea wouldn't be with them.


	22. Chapter 22: Thea

Harry, Ron, Luna, and Neville reappeared with a crack. "Well, the good news is that we're pretty sure we've found where they're holding Jax and Valentina," said Harry.

"The bad news is that they saw us," Ron finished for him.

Thea though was focused on someone else. "Are you sure you can do it?"

"I can bring it down," said Seamus.

"He can bring it down," the others reiterated.

"Hey, I don't blow everything up," Seamus told them, clearly a little offended by their tone.

Thea shook her head. She didn't care about what he had accidentally blown up at Hogwarts-she cared about whether or not he could blow up the dais-they couldn't risk her doing it, and with Jax captured, they had to rely on someone else, and Neville had suggested the pyrotechnic expert from the Order, Seamus Finnegan. "You have the important job," said Thea. "Be sure that you take it down."

George pulled her aside. "Relax."

Thea shook her head again. "If we don't do this exactly right, they bring him back. We fail, and they bring him back. We have to destroy that dais-it's the most important thing."

"We will," said George. "This is going to work. Now come on. We need your hair for the polyjuice potion. Not as fun as taking your blood, but it will do."

"Haha."

George had of course been referring to just a couple of weeks before when she had needed both his and Fred's blood tested to see if there were any DNA differences. There had been, but those had been resolved when Thea had sent Orrin through the dais instead of Fred.

Thea followed George back into the centre of the room and ripped out a few hairs, which she handed to Hermione. Hermione, George, Fred, Harry, Ron, and Seamus would be taking the potion to help throw off Nott and the rest of the Elite. For the most part, their job was to play decoy downstairs while Ginny, Luna, and Neville led the rest of the order outside and upstairs to deal with the rest of the order. Seamus was responsible for blowing up the dais, while Thea and George would be the ones actually rescuing Jax and Valentina. The idea was for Thea to be in and out before Nott had a chance to figure out which one she was.

"You're all sure you want to do this?" Thea asked them.

"It was your idea," George reminded her.

"That's why I have to ask. It was my idea, but if they capture any of you because they think you're me..." Thea knew that this was how it had to be.

"Give her a break," said Harry. "It's not easy to have people become you."

"Thank you," Thea told him.

"It's ready," said Hermione. "Are we all doing this?" When everyone nodded she poured the potion into little cups and began passing them around. As soon as they drank the potion, every except for Hermione began to shrink down to Thea's size (as Hermione was the same size, her size didn't change, just her features). Everyone changed into similar outfits-similar, but not quite the same. In this case, it was helpful to know who was who, and the real Thea wouldn't be on-site for long.

"This is really strange-you have no idea," she told George as the others started disapparating. They wanted it to be a ripple effect-Harry had opted to go first, followed by Ron, Hermione, Fred, and Seamus last before Thea and George made their appearance. They wanted to make sure the Elite was good and distracted before Seamus and Thea even arrived.

Once the others had all disapparated, Thea and George were last. When they apparated into the basement, the battle was going strong. The other Theas were engaged in battle with the Elite, but Thea and George focused on untying Jax and Valentina. Thea ducked under a curse that flew over her shoulder. She kept her wand low as she undid the knots keeping Jax's hands tied. "Come on," she told him, disapparating to the street in front of Grimmauld Place. A second later, George appeared with Valentina.

Jax looked over at Thea as the headquarters appeared. "How did I get so lucky to get the real Thea rescuing me?" he asked. She could tell he was amused at their strategy.

"What gave me away?" Thea stepped onto the front step, and with a flick of her wand to unlock the door. She pushed it open.

Jax nodded toward her hand. "Your wand. I know your wand anywhere. It almost blew off my hand when I decided to borrow it in potions."

The four of them stepped inside, and it wasn't until they made their way into the kitchen before Thea spoke. "It was your cauldron, not your hand. Stop being so dramatic."

Jax shrugged that off. "And I presume that our other rescuer is George?"

"Guilty," the other Thea spoke up.

"And hopefully it wears off soon-it's just too weird," Thea said with a sigh. "I hate this place," she said softly, turning her attention away from George. It weirded her out to look at him. It had been her idea, and it had been a good one, but that didn't mean that it wasn't awkward to see her boyfriend as herself at the moment. "Every time I come here I can't leave for the foreseeable future."

"Well, it's not for the foreseeable future this time," said George.

He still sounded like her, so Thea avoided his gaze.

"You're safer at the apartment where there's only one secret keeper."

"The two of you, on the other hand," Thea said softly, "will be here until we get the all-clear. Granted, the hope is that we get the all-clear in just a little while, but if anyone escapes, then..." She left that hanging, leaning against the table for a moment. "We brought your stuff here just in case."

Before Jax or Valentina could comment on that, there was a horrible screaming from the hallway. "I'll get that," said George.

Harry had inherited the house from his godfather during the Second Wizarding War, and it had been his godfather's family house, which had originally been devoted to the Dark Arts. No one had figured out how to take the portrait of the original owner down, so every time there was noise in the hallway, she woke up and started screaming.

When George returned, he was back to his old self, and the others had come in with him. The polyjuice had worn off for all of them, too.

"I wasn't able to destroy it."

Thea turned her focus to Seamus and then sighed. "What happened?"

"It's not his fault," said Hermione. "As soon as he saw all of us, Nott disapparated with the dais."

Thea nodded. They had been afraid that something like that would have happened. "But everyone got out safe?"

"We're all here," said Seamus, "so yeah, I'd say so."

"At least there's that," Thea said with some relief.


	23. Chapter 23: George

Once everyone had changed and cleaned up, they all sat down in the kitchen to both eat and to figure out what they were going to do. "Well, we can't just track him this time," said Thea. "He'll be expecting that." She took a breath. "Logically, I'd think that the only way we can draw him out is with the other thing that he wants, sort of make it like a trade."

"No," said George, but before he could elaborate, Thea put her hand over his to stop him.

"I'm not necessarily suggesting that I go as bait. I'm just thinking out loud."

It was a testament to how far they had come that Thea was comfortable just thinking out loud. When they had first come together as a group-and a smaller group at that, since Neville, Luna, and Seamus hadn't been here with them for that-Thea had preferred to hide in her room rather than even be in the kitchen with everyone else.

"Well, what if we do the polyjuice again?" Seamus suggested. "We can take turns being you to try to draw him out, and then we can have someone follow whoever's taken the polyjuice potion to destroy the dais and get the first person out."

"It would be really risky," Thea said softly, but George couldn't get a read on whether she liked the idea or not, despite her words.

"No bigger a risk than the ones you've already taken," Harry pointed out. "It would be volunteer only-so no one is being coerced into doing something they'd rather not do. It can't be you-but it has to be. I don't really see another option."

"We can all take four-hour shifts," said Ron.

"But maybe the protectors should be on a different shift," Luna suggested, "so everything won't get messed up on shift changes."

Thea shook her head. "No. I think that's too complicated. I think it should depend entirely on what I am supposedly doing. Switch in a secure location in between each so-called outing." She paused for a second, and George had a feeling he wasn't going to like what she had to say next. "If we use Cambridge, and that's a big if, seeing as it depends on whether or not they call me, I need to be involved and on-site. While Hermione and Seamus could pretend to be muggles-I mean, at this point, even Fred might be able to pull that off, none of them has any physics knowledge, so I have to be there to talk whoever it is through what I would be doing."

"It's probably best if we avoid Cambridge all together," George said quietly. Why make things harder than it had to be?

"I agree," Thea told him, "but there may not be much choice in the matter. Cambridge is a normal part of my routine at times, so if they call me, I won't be able to repeatedly put them off. My hope is that this will be over quickly, but if it's not, Cambridge is probably going to have to be on the table."

She definitely didn't like it, George could tell this time, so he took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "We'll get it done as quickly as we can, so you can get back to a normal life."

Thea shook her head again. "You can't. The people closest to me can't be involved in this. If you were to be captured, we'd end up right back where we were a matter of hours ago."

George nodded. She had a point there.

"So now we just need to figure out what we'll be doing as you," said Harry, pulling out some parchment, a quill, and some ink, all of which he handed to Thea. "We'll need a list."

"You do realize that for some of these, it's not just the person being me that would have to take polyjuice," Thea said softly. "It would make the most sense if whoever is with them plays someone who usually is with me."

George chuckled, realizing what she meant. "You mean me-me, and Jax, and Fred mainly." That was who she mostly spent time with, and those probably also the people that couldn't go on these excursions.

"Precisely," Thea told him.


	24. Chapter 24: Thea

Thea and George ended up staying at Grimmauld Place-as well as Fred. Although there were more secret keepers, it would be difficult and potentially dangerous to transfer any of them. As it was, it was better being there than it had been in the past-at least for Thea. Before, Thea had been more of an outsider, and she was really the only one being protected. Now, she was an accepted member of the group, and she was also not the only one under lock and key. It made the dreary house positively cheerful.

They spent the time playing exploding snap, and Thea had even managed to teach them a few muggle card games. This time though, Valentina (and Jax to some degree) was the odd one out since Thea had been staying with George and Fred before all of this had started.

There were a few awkward moments though, particularly when Hermione and Ron decided to interview her and George, for their date as the two of them. Luckily, they were interviewing them separately. "So how do you act when you're out together?" Hermione asked.

Thea made a face. "I don't know. We don't usually go out. Usually, I'm locked away somewhere because someone's after me," she said pointedly.

"You haven't gone out at all?" Hermione asked, a little surprised.

Thea sighed. "Well, we went out to lunch after that whole thing with Azkaban."

"Okay, well, what happened?"

"I don't know." Thea shook her head. "Mostly I think I annoyed him because I didn't want to assume he would pay."

Hermione chuckled at that. "That's what you two fight about?"

Thea narrowed her eyes. "Why? What do you and Ron fight about?"

Hermione laughed. "Everything else."

Both girls laughed at that. Then Thea sighed. "Seriously, I don't think it matters. Nott doesn't really know me."

Hermione took a breath. "Maybe. But I don't feel like I know you that well. I was actually hoping to use this as an excuse to get to know you better."

"Oh." Thea blinked at her. "Um, what did you want to know exactly?"

"I don't know," Hermione admitted, sitting down on the bed. "I mean, aside from Ginny, most of my friends are guys...and we usually talk about guys-which I'm sensing that you don't want to do."

Thea sat down beside her. "To be honest, I don't really have too many girlfriends either. Honestly, I found the girls at Hogwarts annoying. I spent more time studying than anything else."

Hermione grinned. "I'm surprised we didn't run into each other in the library."

Thea couldn't help grinning as well. "Oh, I didn't study in the library. I spent a lot of time in empty classrooms."

"Why didn't you ever join the DA?"

Thea shrugged. "Honestly, I didn't even know about it until after it was disbanded. I tended to isolate pretty much from fourth year on."

Hermione looked at her closely. "Liam really did a number on you, didn't he?"

Thea shrugged and stood, moving away from Hermione. "Watching your boyfriend kill your parents does that." She turned back toward Hermione, who was still sitting on the bed. "I angry more than anything else-I had to be. It's what got me through it-kept me fighting, even when no one seemed to believe me." The Daily Prophet had made sure of that by running stories that made her out to be crazy. Apparently, they had done similar to Harry and Dumbledore after Voldemort had come back, but Thea had stopped her subscription long before that happened.

"Until Orrin," Hermione said softly.

Thea nodded. "Until Orrin." She turned to face Hermione. "My life has mostly been about preparing to deal with all of this, so I hadn't had much time until recently, to think of other things."

Hermione was quiet for a moment, and Thea sighed. "Sorry," said Thea. "I didn't mean to unload on you."

Hermione shook her head. "No, it's okay. I was just thinking...Harry, Ron, and me...we grew up with the shadow of Voldemort over our heads, but we still had at least some normal. You didn't even have that, did you?"

Thea sank down onto the side of the bed with a frown. "I suppose not." She hadn't really thought about it, but she supposed that Liam and Orrin had taken a lot more away from her than just her parents. They had taken her entire childhood.

Hermione left shortly after that to get ready for her date, leaving Thea in her room by herself. Soon after that, George came up. He sat down beside her. "That was the most annoying half-hour ever."

"Yeah." Thea didn't look over at him.

George frowned, gently turning her head to face him. "What's wrong?"

Thea sighed and shook her head. "Hermione and I got to talking, and stuff came up. Stuff about Liam and Orrin."

George put an arm around her. "You okay?"

Thea nodded and rested her head on his shoulder. "Yeah. Just a little sad about all the things I missed while I was preparing to stop Orrin and the Elite. It had never occurred to me that I was missing out."

George shifted so that both arms were around her. "You did what you had to do," he told her, "but I'm sorry that you had to miss out on anything."


	25. Chapter 25: George

As soon as George could get away from Thea without feeling as if he was being insensitive, he made his way downstairs to find Jax. He found him in the living room, sitting on one of the ancient couches across from Valentina. They had set up a small folding table between them and were playing wizard's chess.

"Hey, Jax, I need a favour." George sat down next to him.

"I'm a little busy right now," Jax told him.

George looked down at the board. He was pretty sure that Jax wasn't winning. "I need help with a surprise for Thea."

"Thea hates surprises." Jax was looking at the board. "Pawn to C-3."

Valentina rolled her eyes. "All that for a pawn?"

"Shut up," said Jax.

Valentina just rolled her eyes again. "Pawn to C-3."

"I think she's gonna like this one," said George, but Jax was still focused on the chess game.

"Knight to H-3," said Jax, before looking over at George. "What is this surprise you think she'll like?"

"Well, she and Hermione had gotten to talking, and apparently, there are a lot of things that she missed out on because she was so busy preparing to deal with Orrin and the Elite," George explained while Valentina was thinking over her move.

"It's true," said Valentina. When both the boys looked over at her she just shrugged. "Professor Silva might have mentioned something about it. Castle to E-4."

Jax was quiet for a moment, and George couldn't figure out if he was considering his move or considering what George had said. "She did miss out on a lot," he said finally. "Pawn to E3." He turned to look at George. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

"That's what I need help with, and you know her better than anyone." George may have felt like he knew Thea better than most people, but he hadn't exactly known her at Hogwarts.

Jax sighed. "Well, all the drama with Liam happened the summer before fourth year, so pretty much everything after that she missed out on. Fourth-year was Lockhart and that stupid duelling club-not that she missed much there. She overheard a few of the teachers talking about it I guess, and that's how she knew Lockhart was in charge of it. She was one of the few girls that wasn't gaga over that idiot." Jax was quiet another moment considering. "Fifth year I don't remember much in particular-activities-wise that is. Sixth year was the Triwizard Tournament and the Yule Ball. She wasn't involved in any of that, and seventh year was Umbridge, so fun was pretty much outlawed."

George considered. "I'm guessing that she didn't put her name in the Goblet of Fire."

Jax shook his head, scoffing at that. "No. And she was the only one of us that was of age at that point, so I tried to convince her to do it-she probably would have been chosen, too, although maybe it's a good thing that she wasn't."

"Yeah, I agree with you there," said George. Cedric Diggory, the one who had been chosen by the cup, had been killed in the graveyard after the tournament. If Thea had been chosen, odds were good that it would have been her in that graveyard with Harry.

"I'm not sure she passed on entering, because of Liam and Orrin though," Jax said quietly. "She might have liked the challenge, but she never cared about glory."

George considered briefly reenacting the Triwizard Tournament, but even if logistically they could pull that off, he was inclined to think that Jax was right-that wouldn't be a surprise that Thea would like. Then it hit him. "What about the Yule Ball? You said she didn't go?"

Jax shook his head. "I offered to take her as friends, but she knew I had a crush on one of the girls in your house, so she refused to go. Looking back now though, I think that may have been in part an excuse. I think she was much more interested in practising spells-and even if she wasn't, I'm not sure she would have wanted to go."

"Trust me, she would have wanted to go."

Both George and Jax looked over at Valentina. George had almost forgotten she was there.

Valentina shrugged. "Hey, if you didn't want me to join in the conversation, maybe you shouldn't be having said conversation in front of me. Bishop to C-2, and that's checkmate." And she headed out of the room.

Jax cursed, and then looked over at George. "Gee thanks."

George shook his head. "You were losing before I came in, so don't blame me. So Yule Ball?"

"Why not?" said Jax. "It's not as if we have anything better to do."


	26. Chapter 26: Jax

Over the next few days, they began setting things up in secret. Slowly, they began to let the others in on their plans, but as they did, each of these people started to avoid Thea for fear that she would find out about the surprise that George was setting up for her, and it didn't take long for Thea to notice.

Jax was downstairs in the kitchen with George and Fred working on making decorations for their version of the Yule Ball. Jax subtly hid his materials, but it wouldn't have mattered, because Thea was focused on George.

"Can we talk?" she asked him.

"We're a little busy right now..." George started off, but his expression looked pained.

Thea just shook her head and spun on her heal heading back upstairs.

George got up to follow her.

"Wait." Jax didn't know why he was fighting so hard to keep this a surprise, but he felt that they at least needed to give it a shot.

George shook his head. "I'm just going to tell her. The whole point to this was to make her happy...to set this up, so she can experience what she missed, but she's not happy, she's upset."

"Well, yeah," said Jax. "But she's upset because everyone's avoiding her to try to keep her from reading their minds."

"It doesn't matter." George shook his head again. "The point is that she's upset." He headed for the door.

Jax sighed and got up to go after him, moving ahead of him to block his path. "There might be a way to fix this without telling her-I mean, we'll have to tell her there's a surprise, but we might not have to tell her what that surprise is."

"We?" George raised an eyebrow.

Jax shrugged. "I actually meant me. I have a little bit of occlumency, and I think I can block out her legilimency long enough to explain that you're trying to surprise her-and convince her that it's a good thing."

George shook his head a third time. "If you have to convince her, then maybe it's not worth it."

Jax sighed again. "Once she knows you're trying to do something nice for her, maybe she can try to block out thoughts, so she can be around everyone without the surprise being given away. I'll talk to her first, and then the two you can talk-if you decide to tell her or if she asks, then we can just say it was a wash, but...no one's ever done anything like this for her before." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "I think it's important for her to know that there are such things as good surprises and that someone would go to that much trouble for her."

George was quiet for a long moment, before finally nodding, and Jax headed upstairs to the room where Thea had been staying. He knocked.

"Go away."

Jax sighed yet again. "I'm not going to go away-you know that."

After a moment, the door opened. Thea stood there, tears in her eyes that she hadn't bothered to hide. "So now you want to talk to me?" She turned to head back in the room, but left the door open, which Jax took as an invitation. He stepped inside.

"You do know why they are avoiding you, don't you?" Jax was pretty sure she didn't know why. "You're a legilimens, and they don't want you to read their mind."

Thea shook her head. "They've known that I'm a legilimens for five and a half months. Why all of a sudden then?"

"Because George is trying to set up a surprise for you," Jax said quietly. "He's setting up a surprise, and anyone who knows about it is afraid that you'll read their mind and find out, ruining the surprise."

Thea blinked at him. "What?"

"Let me guess, you thought George was losing interest or upset with you or just being a jerk and getting everyone to go along with him?" Jax could understand why she might think that-they really hadn't thought this through when they had decided to try to make it a surprise, but that was the point to this conversation. She was wrong, and Jax wanted to be sure that she knew that-that she knew the truth.

"He's not losing interest," Jax continued gently when Thea didn't answer. "He loves you. I can't read minds like you do, but spending as much time around him as I have these last few days...let's just say that where you're concerned, he's an open book. He's not Liam. He's not going to put you through anything like what that idiot did." It needed to be said, and not just for Thea.

"In fact, he's upset right now, because he knows that he hurt you. He was planning this surprise, because he thought it would make you happy, not to upset you, and if you want to know what we're up to, you can go ahead and ask him, and he'll tell you." Jax took a breath. "But I don't think you should. He's gone to a lot of trouble for this, so I think...I think you should block out everyone's thoughts. What we're planning, it will be ready by tomorrow night, and I know it's a lot to ask, but I don't think you should ruin the surprise."

Thea was quiet for a moment. "I don't know if I can," she said softly. "I've never really tried to block others' thoughts."

"Well, I think you should try." Jax had no qualms now of pushing his best friend out of her comfort zone, but he wasn't so sure he was ready to take that step himself. Realizing that the thought had slipped, he glanced over at Thea.

"This isn't just about me, is it?" Thea asked.

Jax shook his head. "No."

"I know that you weren't especially happy when my relationship with George started to get more serious," Thea said softly.

Jax shook his head again. "No, I wasn't. But you have to understand...I was the one who was there to pick up the pieces after Liam...after everything he put you through." Jax shook that off. "But George isn't like Liam," he said again.

"You were worried about me-worried that George would hurt me the way that Liam did."

Jax took a breath. "I was, but I know that it's not the same. I know that George would rather cut off his own arm than see you hurt."

"Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that," Thea said with a chuckle. "But that's not all, is it? It's why your relationships tend to be short-lived, and it's why you're keeping Valentina at arm's length."

Jax opened his mouth about to argue, but then closed it. It wasn't as if arguing was going to convince her that it wasn't true-especially not when there was an element of truth to her theory.

"Liam was a jerk-he was just an all-around bad guy," said Thea. "Not everyone is like him."

"I know that," said Jax.

"Do you?" Thea countered. "You need to give Valentina a chance. I know you like her."

"What do you think I've been doing?" Although the last few days, he had been more focused on setting up the surprise for Thea. "I'm taking time to get to know her." But he was also avoiding letting her get close to him. Sure they played wizard's chess and card games, but they didn't really talk.

Thea just raised an eyebrow, and Jax knew that she didn't believe him for a second.

"All right, all right. I'll talk to her." What he was going to say, he didn't know though.

"She is one of the good guys," Thea said softly. "I don't think she would hurt you the way that Liam hurt me-not without good reason."

Jax nodded, but somehow, that didn't reassure him much.


	27. Chapter 27: Thea

Thea waited a few minutes after talking with Jax-she wanted to make sure she had a chance to calm down before going to talk to George. She had to make sure she could block out his thoughts.

She found him down in the basement kitchen.

As soon as Fred saw her, he made an excuse and headed upstairs, leaving Thea and George alone.

"I am so sorry," he told her.

Thea shook her head. "No, it's okay. Jax explained-and I'm trying to control the legilimency, so I won't find out and spoil the surprise."

"Can you do that?"

Thea shook her head again. "I don't know. I've never really tried. I was always concerned with knowing what people were thinking and avoiding any surprises. I've never really trusted anyone enough to try to block them out before."

"I really do think you'll like what I have planned," George told her.

"I would hope so," said Thea, "seeing as you've gotten everyone involved in it."

George and the others had everything ready by the following night. Thea had been banished to her room for the last few hours-although seeing as Hermione, Ginny, and Luna had shown up just after that with a blue gown, Thea was quite busy during that time. She was also starting to put together what George had been up to-not that she hadn't already had some suspicions.

This whole mess had started after she had mentioned the things she had missed out on during her years at Hogwarts thanks to Liam and Orrin, so it reasoned that he was trying to surprise her with something that she had missed. When the girls came in with the dress, there was really only one thing he could be planning-a retake of the Yule Ball.

In all honesty, Thea hadn't wanted to go to the Yule Ball back then. There was really no one she was interested in, and although Jax had offered to go as friends, she knew that he had had a crush on Alicia Spinnet back then, so she had decided it was just best not to go.

Now though, she was in a relationship, and George had gone to a lot of trouble to surprise her with this. That didn't mean she knew how she felt about the idea of a night of dressing up and dancing in uncomfortable shoes.

Still, she participated in dressing up with the other girls, and let them put her hair up. She opted to do her own makeup-she just wasn't overly comfortable with allowing other people to do that for her.

When they were finally allowed down, the girls headed down to the first floor and to what was ordinarily the dining room. The boys had moved the table and chairs out and had set up a huge Christmas tree, decorated with light and tinsel. The room itself looked as if it had been snowing with white everywhere. Music was playing softly in the background as George met Thea in the doorway.

"You look beautiful," he told her, taking her hand and kissing it in dramatic fashion.

Thea couldn't help laughing at that. "Thank you. I can't believe you did all this."

"Well, I did have some help," George admitted.

"Yes, I remember-the whole brilliant idea of having no one talk to me, so there wouldn't be a risk of me reading their minds and spoiling the surprise." There was laughter in her voice to let him know that she held no ill will about that now, but he still seemed bothered by the comment.

"Yeah, sorry again about that."

Thea shook her head at that as he led her into the room. "This more than makes up for it. You don't need to do all of this to impress me though."

"Yeah, well haven't you noticed that big sweeping gestures are sort of my thing?" George spun her around and brought her back. Thea hadn't even realized, but he had been leading her over to what was serving as a dance floor.

Thea couldn't help laughing. "Yes, I'm starting to get that idea."

"I like hearing you laugh," George continued as they swayed on the makeshift dance floor. Hermione and Ron had joined them as well as Ginny and Harry. Both Fred and Seamus were with girls from the order that Thea didn't recognize, but Jax and Valentina were off to the side-she hoped they were talking.

Thea turned her attention back to George, but George had followed her gaze off to Jax and Valentina.

"You're worried about them," he said with a sigh. George stepped back, releasing her. "Go."

But Thea gripped his hand before he could walk away. "No. Am I worried-yes, a little, but Jax is a grown-up, and he wouldn't appreciate me going to interfere. You have my undivided attention."

George held her gaze for a moment as if trying to determine if what she was saying was true. Finally, he sighed. "Come with me." And he led her out of the dining room. The rest of the house was decorated for Christmas as well-they had been busy. He led her into the living room, which, since everyone was in the dining room, was empty.

They sat down on one of the couches there. Thea knew that George had brought her there because he wanted to be sure that she wouldn't be distracted, but she was trying not to read his mind to see the rest. It was a new thing for her to block people out, but she was finding that she mostly could do it-as long as she stayed calm anyway.

"That day you wandered into my shop," George began. "Let's just stay I was in a really bad place. Losing Fred...I didn't really think I'd ever come back from that. My family, they wanted me to be okay, and I just couldn't be that-not all the time anyway, so I started showing up less and less because when I would show up, I would either fake it or resent them because I felt like I had to fake it."

He looked down at their joined hands for a moment as if he were gathering his thoughts. She let him.

"I never had to fake it with you," said George, meeting her gaze. "You saw me, where I was, and you accepted that. You were just there. That night at the expo...it was a turning point for me, so that day you walked into my shop...you changed my life, and not just because you ended up bringing Fred back. I had finally almost accepted that he was gone by the time you had," he said softly. "You changed my life because you were there...because of who you are. And I'd like to think that it's the same way for you-you laugh more now than you did when we first met."

Thea couldn't help smiling at that. "I definitely laugh more because of you."

George grinned at that, before becoming serious again. "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that...and that I love you."

_I just wanted to tell you that...and that I love you. _Jax had told her that this was the case, and as a legilimens, she had had an inkling, but she hadn't expected him to tell her. Damn Jax and his stupid idea for her to block her thoughts.

And as if the thought had triggered it, everyone's thoughts came rushing into her head.

_Oh, no, I hope I didn't scare her. _

_I don't know what to say here. _

_I wish he would just say something!_

_I had thought this would be awkward, but I guess we really can be friends after everything. _

_I wonder if Daddy's found a crumple-horned snorkack on his trip._

Thea pressed her hands to her temples as she tried to get control of it. One breath in. One breath out. She closed her eyes.

"Thea, are you all right?"

She could hear George's voice, but it sounded as far away as everyone's thoughts that were running through her mind. When he gripped her arms though, that helped her to focus more on him and on where they were.

"Just give me a second," Thea said softly, still focusing on her breathing. When he started to pull away, she grabbed for his arms. "Don't let go."

His arms steadied on her, and she focused on them, on his grasp as she breathed. After a few more minutes, she opened her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"What happened?" George asked her, concern in his eyes.

Thea shook her head and sighed. "I was blocking-I didn't want to spoil what you were saying, but I lost control for a minute there, and everyone's thoughts were in my head. I just got overwhelmed."

She could tell that he thought he had brought it on by what he had said-and really, he was kind of right. She had lost control, because what he had said scared her, and she had lost her calm, which meant she had lost control.

For a moment, she didn't think he was going to say it, but then, "You were overwhelmed because of the voices or because of what I said?"

Thea took a breath. "Both."

George looked away, but not before she saw the hurt expression on his face.

"Look...I care about you...more than I have ever cared about anyone before, but I'm still sorting out my feelings beyond that," she told him, putting a gentle hand on his face to turn his gaze back toward her. "Can that just be enough right now?"

George took her hands in his. "As long as you don't run away."

He knew her too well. She shook her head. "I'm not running." But she frowned then as her phone buzzed in her pocket-she had forgotten to turn it off. "Give me just a moment." Thea let go of George's hands and stood while pulling out her phone. Unsurprisingly, the readout was from Cambridge. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Thea Walker?" came through the phone.

"It is," said Thea, unsure as to what this could be about, but having a bad feeling.

"This is Jane Miranda with Cambridge University's Human Resource Department. I understand that you worked with Dr. Cooper in the Physics Department and have filled in on a few of his lectures, and I was wondering if you would be available to fill in on a temporary basis-just until the end of the semester. If you're interested, I would be happy to interview you as his permanent replacement as well."

For a moment, Thea couldn't speak. She wasn't even sure she was interested. "Um...you know what, this isn't a really good time for me. Would it be okay if I gave you a callback tomorrow, so we can discuss this further?"

Jane gave her a call back number, and Thea hung up the phone before slowly turning to face George. "That was Cambridge University...they want me to cover Ben's classes for the last couple of weeks of the semester, and they're offering me an interview for his job permanently."

At first, George just looked at her, before standing and going to her and pulling her into his arms. "I would say congratulations, but I know it's a bit more complicated than that." He pulled back to look at her. "What do you want to do?"

Thea shrugged. "What can I do? I either need to turn them down, which I don't want to do, or I-some version anyway-needs to go to Cambridge." She waited a beat, knowing that it had to be said, but not wanting to say it. "I have to go. I at least have to be in the car waiting outside, so I can talk whomever it is through this. There's no other option."


	28. Chapter 28: George

"Are you sure about this?" George asked Thea. And he wasn't asking if she was sure about the mission. He knew she wanted to take the temporary position-even if she had framed it in how it would mess up what they were doing if she didn't take it. He just didn't want her to have to sacrifice the permanent position because of all this-she had given up enough.

Thea nodded. "If I turn down the temporary position, they would be suspicious, but I don't want to be a full-time professor. I'd turn that down even if circumstances were different-but I have to take the temporary position, otherwise, it will look suspicious."

They had decided that Hermione would be playing Thea for this particular mission-both because of her experience in the muggle world and because of all of them, they figured she would understand what Thea was telling her best. Ron and Seamus would be with Thea in the car. Harry had wanted to be in on it, but they had pointed out to him that if something went wrong, he needed to be able to run things-to handle the fallout. The fact was that he was just too important to risk.

Thea made a face as she drank the polyjuice potion-in order for this to work, Hermione would not only be becoming Thea, but Thea would be becoming Hermione as well.

"You've never taken polyjuice potion before?" George asked her, guessing by her reaction.

Thea shook her head. "No." She downed the rest in one gulp, and then her features began twisting and transfiguring. After a moment it stopped. "How do I look?" she asked.

"Like Hermione," said George. "I think I have some idea as to how you felt when I was you."

Thea shook her head. "Trust me-you don't."

No, he supposed he didn't. It would be very strange indeed if she were to take polyjuice potion to become him.

Another Thea stepped out from another room. "Are you ready?" she asked Thea (who was now Hermione).

The real Thea nodded.

"Take care of yourself," George told her. It was risky for her to go out, because if she was captured, then it would be all over-she was the only missing piece to Nott's plan, but if she didn't go out, their plan to lure Nott out would fail. They didn't have any choice. This was as safe as it could be.

"I'll be okay," she told him, and the four of them left.


	29. Chapter 29: Thea

At first, everything was going according to plan. They were using electronics equipment so that Thea could relay directions to Hermione, but they knew that if they had to use magic, they would be out of contact. It was a risk, but one they felt was worth taking-Hermione was the one in the spotlight after all. Except that she wasn't.

Thea was in the process of dictating an equation for Hermione to put on the board when a spell blasted through the window, shattering the glass. Ron, who was in the back seat with Thea, shoved her down. Seamus turned the key in the ignition, but before he could put the car into gear, a stunning spell was shot through the driver's window, hitting its mark. Seamus slumped over the seat.

"Come on, we have to go." And Ron started pulling her toward the door.

Thea pulled back. "We can't just leave him! Are you crazy!"

Ron grabbed her wrist. "You're the priority. He and I both knew the risk-you have to get out of here. If he gets ahold of you, we're all dead, and you know it."

Thea nodded, acknowledging that he was right, as much as she hated it.

Ron nodded and held a finger to his lips, before moving toward the car door. Slowly he opened it just a crack, and a flash of red light came blasting through, knocking Ron back against the seat.

Thea scrambled back in the other direction as the car door slowly opened to reveal Nott's grinning face.

"Thea...how nice to see you again."

The polyjuice potion hadn't yet worn off, so that meant that he had known their plan-probably all along. Thea flicked her wand and cast a non-verbal shield charm, just as Nott cast his own spell. Given the red light that bounced off of her shield, it was probably a stun spell.

"A shield charm. I should have known that you would go defensive on me," said Nott. "It doesn't matter-you can't exactly go anywhere. You're trapped."

While not entirely true, she was trapped inside the vehicle-but that didn't mean she couldn't make the vehicle move. She pointed her wand at the front of the car. "Locomotor."

"No!" Nott screamed as the engine roared to life.

Thea pointed her wand at Seamus. "Rennervate."

"Huh? What's going on?" he asked her, glancing around as she deflected a curse.

"Later, just drive," said Thea. While the car was moving on its own now thanks to Thea's spell, it didn't really know where to go. "Protego totalum," she shouted, casting a shield around the entire car, before pointing her wand at Ron. "Rennervate."

"You're brilliant, you know that?" He told her.

Thea chuckled at that before casting more defensive charms.

"Um, not that I'm not grateful that you woke us up," said Seamus, "but where are we going from here?"

"I was just focused on getting us out of there," Thea admitted.

"Hermione," Ron said suddenly. "She's still inside."

Thea looked down. "We can't get to her." She bit her lip. "But we can reach out to the others to let them know." She started hunting around for some parchment, finding some in the passenger-side dash compartment. She pulled a pen out of the pocket of her robes and began writing. After a few moments, she sent the letter off. "I sent it to Harry since he's waiting to hear from of anyway. He can rally the troops."

"Reducto!"

All three of them turned to look as the door was blasted off the backseat of the car.

"Stupefy!" Came three voices before Thea, Ron, or Seamus had a chance to react, giving them no chance to dodge or deflect the spells coming their way.


	30. Chapter 30: Jax

"Move your knight there," Fred said quietly.

Jax looked over at Fred through narrowed eyes. "Now why would I do that? If I move my knight there, she'll take it."

"Oh, right. Sorry," said Fred, and Jax shook his head, before glancing over at George who was pacing the length of the room.

"You're going to end up pacing a hole in the carpet," Jax told him.

George shook his head. "I don't think Harry is going to care." But he sat down on the piano bench anyway, settling for tapping his foot rapidly against the antique rug.

"Do you want to know what I care about?" Valentina asked. "Make a move."

Jax rolled his eyes. "Fine. Pawn to C-3."

"You always have to do that, don't you? Make the smallest move known to mankind," Valentina scoffed as footsteps could be heard out in the hallway.

A moment later both Harry and Hermione appeared, both wearing the same grave expression. George leapt up from his seat. "How bad?" He asked.

Hermione just shook her head. It was Harry that spoke, "Nott must have been onto us all along-the ruse didn't work. He ambushed the team in the car." He took a breath. "The Elite took all three of them."

For a moment, none of them spoke before George headed for the door. Fred, Harry, and Hermione went after him.

"Get out of my way!" Jax and Valentina could hear George shout an instant before Mrs. Black started screaming.

"Think about this," Fred could be heard over the painting. "You can't just run out there by yourself, otherwise you're going to end up captured, and that gives them another hostage to use against her."

"Well, then what are we doing?" George demanded. "What's the plan?"

"Can we talk about this in the living room?" Harry asked him. "Where Mrs. Black isn't screaming her head off?"

George must have agreed because a moment later, the screaming stopped, and the four of them appeared in the doorway. George slumped back down onto the piano bench, and Fred sat down beside him.

"So what are we doing?" Fred asked.

"We've called in the rest of the order," said Harry. "They should be arriving soon."

"But?" George asked.

"But we don't know where Nott took them," Hermione answered, leaning against the couch where Jax was sitting.

"We can do a tracking spell," George said desperately.

"Nott won't fall for that again," said Jax. "Pawn to E-4."

"How can you still be playing your game? Don't you care?"

Jax looked over at George. "Of course I care, but there isn't much we can do. You and I are still on lockdown, because Nott may have Thea, but if he gets either of us, then he will use us to get her to do what he wants. Even if you and I weren't on lockdown, there still isn't much we can do to find them until she finds a way to contact us, and you know she will."  
"He's right," said Valentina. "She's smart, and she's powerful. If anyone can get out of this, it's her."

"And she's not alone," Hermione reminded them.

"That's right," said Harry. "Ron and Seamus are with her. We have to trust them to do the job-to finish this."

The only problem was, that was much easier said than done.

Later that evening, Jax headed upstairs. Before he could go into his bedroom though, Valentina cornered him at the top of the stairs. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Fine." He wasn't. When she didn't move, he raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to let me by?"

"Not just yet," Valentina told him, trailing her fingers down the bannister in an absent sort of fashion. "George is a mess; Fred is upset-even Hermione and Harry are worried, but you're completely calm-or at least you appear to be. I'm not buying it."

Jax used his arm to gently push her aside so he could pass her. "I can't help you with that."

Valentina came around in front of him, blocking his path. "I don't want your help. I wanted to offer mine."

"I don't need your help." If he let her help him, he would break down, and he didn't want to do that.

She reached out and touched his arm. "Jax, she's your best friend-it's okay to be upset."

Jax pulled out of her grasp and went into his room, sinking down onto the bed, putting his head in his hands. Valentina followed.

At first, she just sat down beside him, but after a few moments, she turned into him, wrapping her arms around him. For a moment, he hesitated, but then he turned into her and let himself break. Maybe just this once it was okay to lean on someone. And maybe just this once, it was okay to fall apart.


	31. Chapter 31: George

George sat in his room, staring at the wall. The rest of the Order had come and gone, and even though they were all looking for Thea, Ron, and Seamus, no one was hopeful.

There was a knock at the door, but George ignored it. The door opened anyway, and Fred came in. "We're going to get them back."

"How?" George asked.

Fred shook his head. "I don't know, but Thea is the smartest witch I've ever seen-just don't tell Hermione I said so, and both Ron and Seamus are good-they're powerful wizards. They'll find a way out of this."

"Before Nott manages to bring Voldemort back?"

Fred sighed. "I don't know."

They both looked up as Valentina came to the doorway. "There's someone here, outside."

George shook his head. "That's impossible. This place has been given every known protection."

"I don't know what to tell you," said Valentina. "There is someone outside, very specifically watching this house."

"Not just one someone." Jax came running up the stairs. "After you left, more joined him. We need to get out of here."

There was a blast of an explosion downstairs and the 'Wham!' of the door coming down. The four disapparated together, reappearing in an alleyway near enough to 12 Grimmauld Place for them to view the destruction. "Search all the rooms," said a gruff voice. "Leave no one here alive. There's not gonna be a rescue this time."

"We need to warn the others," said Fred, but Valentina shook her head.

"There's no time," she told him. "We need to get out of here-once we get somewhere safe, we can start reaching out."

"She's right," said Jax. "If we get caught here, we do no good to the Order or Thea or the others. We need to go."

"We can go back to the shop," George said quietly. "Our apartment has all the same protections as Grimmauld Place did-if anything, it's more secure, because there's only one secret keeper."

"The secret keeper isn't Thea, is it?" Valentina asked.

George shook his head. "No, it's not."

The four of them disapparated and reappeared in Diagon Alley and began head for the twins' shop. George let them all in, and they headed up to the apartment.

"Do you have parchment, a quill, ink?" Jax asked, and Fred went into the kitchen to get it.

"How could they have possibly found us?" George asked.

"Well, has it ever happened before?" Valentina asked as Fred returned with the materials.

"Once." Fred handed the parchment to Jax, who began writing. "During the war-didn't they put a taboo on Voldemort's name or something?"

George blinked at him. "Yeah, but how did you know that? That didn't really come out until after the war."

Fred shook his head. "Your girlfriend is like a walking history book-I asked her. It's not as if I had anything else better to do while I was stuck at Cambridge with her." He turned back to Valentina. "If anyone said his name, it would break through their protective enchantments. It's how-"

Valentina shook her head, cutting him off. "That has to be it then. But what could they have put a taboo on?"

"Val ad adonte addresse," said Jax, and the letter he had written vanished, sent off to its recipient, probably Harry as he was in charge of all of this. Jax shrugged. "Everyone's names-You-Know-Who's name, although Fred just said that, and I think the warding is still in place."

"But how do you know?" Fred asked.

It was Valentina's turn to shrug. "Magicae revelare." Red and blue lines crossed the room for a moment in an intricate spider web before vanishing. "They're intact."

"Okay, so it's not Voldemort then, but everyone else's names?" George asked.

"Would be easiest," said Jax. With a sigh, he got out another bit of parchment and began writing.

"What are you doing?" Jax had already sent the note to the others, so why a second one.

Jax looked over at George. "To warn them about the taboo."

"Wait a second," said Valentina. "I know how to find them."

Jax shook his head. "They've got protective charms set up. We can't..." His head snapped. "You want to put a taboo on something they'll say."

Valentina nodded and grinned. "It's only fair, isn't it? They've figured out how to get around our protective spells. Why shouldn't we be able to get around theirs?"

"And then we could track them." For the first time since Thea, Ron, and Seamus had gone missing, George had hope that they could find them. "Do you know how to make a taboo?" he asked Valentina.

Valentina took a breath. "No, but I think that between the four of us, we can figure it out."


	32. Chapter 32: Thea

Thea awoke in a dimly lit room on what felt like an old couch. Her back felt cramped, and her arm was falling asleep from laying on it. She tried to shift her position but found that her arms were tied behind her back. Even so, she managed to shift just enough to see what was going on around her. The walls were a dull, bare, off-white colour, and there was a light flickering somewhere just out of her range of vision. And then it was blocked. Standing over her was Theodore Nott.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty, or should I say good evening?" he said pleasantly.

"How did you find us?" Thea asked though she didn't really expect him to tell her.

Nott shrugged. "I put a taboo on all of your names. I knew one of you would say someone's name at some point. I wasn't about to let you get away again."

Thea raised an eyebrow. That had been smart, and there had been no way she or the others could have predicted that. "So now you've got me," she said quietly. "What are you planning to do to me?"

"To you? Nothing," said Nott, moving aside so Thea could see two chairs set up back to back. Tied to each chair and still stunned were Ron and Seamus. "Now, here is how this is going to go: in a moment, I'm going to wake the two of them up. Fawley and Avery are going to to have some fun with them...that is until you decide to tell us how to bring the Dark Lord back safely. If you decide to let your friends suffer, I will eventually lose my patience. We'll kill the two of them and bring back the Dark Lord anyway. I trust that you won't let the world self-destruct." He stepped off to the side. "Let's go!"

Two men appeared from around the corner. Thea recognized Isaac Fawley from when he had accompanied Orrin and Shafiq to Jax's house to threaten her-or rather to threaten Jax and his family, but she had never seen Avery before.

"Have fun," said Nott, before heading out of the room.

Fawley approached Thea. "We're gonna have some fun."

"Not the girl." Nott was in the doorway, rolling his eyes. "Just make sure she can see whatever you are doing to the other two." And he headed back out.

Fawley grabbed Thea by the arm and pulled her up to a seated position. She winced. "Let's make sure you have a nice good view," Fawley told her, before turning to join Avery in standing over Ron and Seamus. "Reenervate," they both said in unison, and then the torture began.

There was something that was almost worse about having to watch someone else get tortured as opposed to being tortured yourself. It was another kind of torture-but then that was the point. She had already shown the ability to resist when being tortured herself, especially since they didn't have legilimency to aid them in getting the information from her-they would have to compel her to tell.

Thea blinked, realizing how they could get out of this-she needed to get her wand, so she would have to direct the conversation to their wands for starters, but, if they ever left, she thought she knew how to break the protective enchantments so that the others could find them.

"Where are we?" Thea asked Fawley and Avery.

As expected, they ignored her.

Thea sighed and tried again. "Where are we?"

This time, Fawley turned to her, releasing Seamus. "Do you actually think we're going to tell you where you are?"

Thea shrugged. "It's not as if we can do anything about it."

Fawley narrowed his eyes at her and looked as if he was about to tell her, before Avery spoke up.

"Nott won't like it."

Fawley shook his head. "I don't work for Nott." He reached out and dragged Thea up by her arm.

Thea winced.

"What are you up to?"

"Who do you work for?" Thea shot back. She hadn't really intended to put him on the defensive, but now she had no choice but to work with it.

"You killed Orrin."

"He killed my parents."

"Filthy muggles." Fawley tightened his grip.

Thea winced again. "Where are we?" she asked again.

"In the last place you'll ever see."

"Where are our wands?"

Fawley shoved Thea back on the couch, but she had gotten what she was after. Nott had their wands.

It was a few hours after that-or at least that was how long it seemed-before Fawley and Avery left. "You guys okay over there?" Thea asked, shifting her position. She had been slowly and steadily trying to break the ropes that bound her hands on the corner of the table beside the couch.

"I've had worse." Seamus's voice was muffled, but it was there.

"Ron?"

"Speak for yourself, Seamus," said Ron before focusing on Thea. "What the bloody hell was that argument with Fawley about anyway?"

"Nott has our wands with him," Thea explained.

"You did all that to find out that Nott has our wands?" Seamus asked.

Thea shrugged. "It got Fawley to stop torturing you for a few minutes, too, and we found out that Fawley isn't loyal to Nott. He's following him out of convenience and common goals, but he'd betray him in a heartbeat if it came down to it."

"What good does that do us?" Ron asked.

"It means," Thea finally managed to break the rope binding her hands, "that I can use Fawley to get Nott down here, hopefully with our wands. If we get our wands, we have a chance."


	33. Chapter 33: George

They weren't making any progress. Although all four of them were smart and creative, none of them had ever created a spell before, which was essentially what they needed to do here. "This isn't working," said Jax.

Valentina sighed. "Cast the tracking spell."

George shook his head. "It won't work. We tried that already. Nott's got protective spells in place."

"Just cast it," said Valentina.

"I don't understand," said Fred. "Did you make it work?"

"No." Jax sighed. "We've got nothing."

"Cast the spell," Valentina told George.

"Fine." George headed into the other room for Thea's hair brush. "Avenseguim." The hair brush floated in the air and flew towards the door.

"How did you do that?" Fred asked.

George shook his head. "I don't know." He looked over at Jax. "I thought you said you hadn't figured out the spell?"

Jax shook his head. "We didn't."

"Maybe _they_ did," said Valentina.

"They?" Fred asked.

Valentina shrugged. "At least three of ours are behind enemy lines so to speak. If they found out about the taboo on our names, they could have broken it themselves."

George chuckled. Thea definitely would have arranged that if she knew. "So now what?"

Valentina shrugged. "We go find her and hope that the other two are with her-and only the other two."


	34. Chapter 34: Thea

Quietly, Thea untied Ron and Seamus. "Remember," she whispered. "No matter what Fawley does to me, you have to stay where you are, make them think they're still tied up. If you fight back, no one will be able to get our wands from Nott." With that, Thea began knocking things onto the floor and breaking them.

The flickering lamp shattered; the few knick knacks that Thea had missed in the first perusal went flying into the walls. The idea was to make as much noise as humanly possible-Thea wanted to attract attention.

Sure enough footsteps came thundering down the steps. Thea turned to Ron and Seamus. "Remember..."

"We'll remember." Ron was rolling his eyes, but he was the one who worried her.

Fawley and Avery appeared in the doorway of the little room.

"Hello, boys," Thea said with a broad grin.

As expected, they lunged for her, but Thea was smaller and more agile, so she dodged them, and they ran into each other.

There was a scuffle and more footsteps could be heard. Suddenly Nott appeared in the doorway. That's when things went wrong. Nott pointed his wand at Thea, and a jolt of red light went flying at Thea, but Ron was up and shoved her out of the way, getting hit instead. Seamus lunged at Nott, but Nott sent another spell flying at him, and Seamus went stiff as a board. He pointed his wand at Thea.

Before he could say the spell though, there was an explosion, and the wall next to him exploding sending plaster everywhere and knocking Nott onto his face. Fawley and Avery turned to look at Nott, so they missed what Thea was doing-not that Thea really knew what she was doing at this point.

Thea reached out a hand as if to call her wand to her, but she didn't even know for sure where her wand was on Nott's person. But that didn't seem to matter-her wand flew out of the pocket of Nott's robes, knocking Ron and Seamus's wands out as it did and flew directly into Thea's outstretched hand.

Thea blinked, staring at her wand. Luckily, Nott had been knocked out by the blast, and Fawley and Avery seemed to be as shocked as she was. She sent a stun spell at them both-Avery went down, but Fawley deflected and sent a spell her way. She ducked.

They battled for a few moments, before Thea managed to get a stun spell out, knocking him down. She took only a second to catch her breath before pointing her wand at Ron. "Renervate."

"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron asked, but Thea just shook her head. She knew what he was asking, but she didn't know the answer, nor did she particularly want to talk about it right now, not when they needed to get out of there.

"Later," she told him, heading over to Seamus. "Renervate." But before she could do or say anything else, Nott had grabbed her from behind and had his wand pointed at her neck.

Ron and Seamus had been going for their wands. "Drop them, or I kill her," said Nott.

"He's lying," said Thea, but she wasn't quick enough to warn them.

Nott sent a spell flying at Seamus, and Seamus was flung to the ground, a pool of blood seeping into the carpet underneath him.

Nott moving gave Thea an opening to stun him, and both she and Ron went over to Seamus.

"Can you do anything?" Ron asked her.

Thea shook her head. "Not much." She cast a few spells and brought Seamus around, but she wasn't a healer. And then they heard voices upstairs.

"We need to get out of here," said Ron.

Thea shook her head. "We need to destroy that dais."

"I'll do it," said Seamus.

Thea turned to him. "I can do it, and then we can get out of here."

Seamus shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere-you know that. If you try to take me with you, I'll just slow you down, but I can destroy the dais, and the Elite with it."

Thea shook her head. "No. There has to be another way."

"There's not," said Seamus. "And they're coming."


	35. Chapter 35: George

The hair brush led them to a quiet London street and in front of a two-story brick house. They kept their distance, just trying to observe, when the house blew up before their eyes. "No!" George took a few steps forward and then saw two figures making their way towards him-it was Thea and Ron.

George ran the rest of the way to them, pulling them both into a hug, only releasing Ron, when Fred got there. Then he was able to focus all of his attention on Thea.

She leaned in closer once he had let Ron go to whisper in his ear, "I love you."

George pulled back to look at her, surprised to hear it when just before she had been kidnapped she hadn't said it back.

Thea nodded, confirming that she had said it, and that she meant it, and he pulled her back to him. "You okay," he asked Ron, who nodded.

"Seamus didn't make it out though."

Over the following weeks, they attended Seamus' funeral and both Thea and Valentina's presence was requested at St. Mungo's-apparently, they had both been left something from Professor Silvas, who had passed away during their exile to 12 Grimmauld Place.

There was an envelope waiting there for each of them, and George stood with Thea as she read her letter. She didn't react but handed the letter to him once she had finished.

_Thea, _

_I wish that there was more time. There is much that I need to tell you, but I suppose that we only have time for the abridged version. I don't know if you ever knew why I connected with you in dreams or not, but I did-I had just been sworn not to tell you. I saw you numerous times over my youth and adulthood, even when we didn't connect. I was told that this was because you were significant-significant to the history and future of wizard-kind. I do not know the entirety of what this means, but I do know that I've seen glimpses of things to come-glimpses of your future-and of your past. _

_There is a woman in Brazil who knows of you-who claims to be your great-grandmother, and I believe her. She has your eyes-or rather, I suppose that you have her eyes. I believe it is she who stopped our meetings out of fear that I would tell you things that she did not wish you to know then. We were just children, and she wanted you to have as normal an upbringing as you could-until Orrin made his move. _

_I knew Orrin as well. Although I have seen others featured in my dreams and later visions, you, Orrin, and your great-grandmother are the only ones I ever met in dreams. Your great-grandmother explained to me why I saw her and you, and I suspect, this was why I also saw Orrin. You see, the powers of seers and that of legilimens are connected. I am sure that you know by now that Orrin was a legilimens, just as you are, but what you may not know is that you are descended from seers. The gift changed in you, allowing you to hear others' thoughts instead of seeing the future, but it comes from the same thing. _

_The next part of what I have to tell you is difficult, and it is this part I wish the most I could tell you in person, but it just wasn't to be. The muggles who raised you, while wonderful people, they were not your parents. I do not know who your parents were, but only that you were given to them, raised in the muggle world for your own protection. Your great-grandmother did not give me details, but I dreamed of her giving you away to them after your birth parents were killed, so I know that what she told me was true. _

_I do not know anything more other than that you must find out who they were-find out who you are. There is another evil far greater than Orrin and the Elite that is coming. They will likely be searching you out in particular, because they do know who you are. You have to be prepared. _

_Go to Brazil...Valentina can help you there. She is from the same village I am from, and she can help you find your great-grandmother. Hopefully she will have the answers that you need. _

_Your friend always, _

_Oscar_

For a moment, George could only stare at the paper, but then he looked over at Thea. "Are you all right?"

Thea took a breath. Let it out. "I don't know. It's a lot."

George pulled her to him in a comforting hug. "We'll figure it out. I'll make the time-we can go to Brazil together."

Thea pulled back to look at him. "But your shop..."

George shook his head. "Fred's back, so he can take charge there. Plus Ron wants to take a break from being an Auror, so he can help out. It will be fine. This is more important."

Jax came over to them from where he had been discussing Valentina's letter with her. "If you want to do this, I'm with you. Valentina's letter asked her to find your birth parents. How are you doing with all of this?"

"I'm a little overwhelmed," Thea admitted.

George released her so Jax could give her a hug.

"I think that's understandable," Jax told her. "But you're not alone in all of this-you've got us."

"So what do you want to do?" Valentina asked. "My schedule is flexible, so we can leave whenever you want to...or not, if you would rather not know."

"I need to know," Thea told them. "But I think Brazil can wait until after the New Year. I have plans for Christmas this year." She turned towards George, standing on her toes to give him a quick kiss, before resting her head on his shoulder.

George put his arm around her, and the four of them headed out of the hospital room. It was time to go home.


End file.
